Riverside Council Rejects Additional Regulations For Public Protests

The Riverside City Council this week in a 5-2 vote rejected an ordinance that sought to place additional restrictions on demonstrators in the city.

“This opens the door for officers to participate in racial or any type of discriminatory profiling,” Councilmember Clarissa Cervantes, who made the motion to reject the ordinance, said. “And unfortunately, and I’ll say this again, I’d hope and I would love to believe in my heart that officers are a force that would not abuse their power, but at the end of the day, everyone’s going to make their individual choices, and that is a concern of mine, that we are giving way too much power to our officers to have that discretionary choice.”

According to Police Chief Larry Gonzalez, the goal of the ordinance was to give local law enforcement additional tools to better handle public demonstrations including gatherings, rallies, protests, picket lines or other public gatherings.

“This ordinance mirrors the actions taken by several other municipalities to help prevent small groups of bad actors from hijacking otherwise peaceful protests or demonstrations and subsequently forcing dangerous interactions with public law enforcement agencies,” he said. “The ordinance would prohibit possession of items commonly brought by these bad actors…for the purpose of damaging property or antagonizing law enforcement officers and avoiding detection after committing illegal acts with the increase in violence and property damage of protests locally and nationally.”

The ordinance sought to prohibit demonstrators from having items such as wooden sticks, metal and plastic pipes, baseball bats, aerosol sprays, weapons, glass bottles, metal containers, shields, gas masks, helmets, body armor, and potential projectiles such as bricks and rocks while demonstrating. 

It also sought to prevent people from wearing masks, face coverings or other disguises, except for those worn due to religious beliefs or due to medical necessity.

“It’s important that our members of the public and law enforcement encountering these events are able to do so without fear or suffering injury while they’re out there,” Gonzalez said. “And the proposed regulations are necessary in order to protect the public health, safety and welfare.”

However, a number of council members, and the vast majority of those who spoke during the public comment period and submitted written comments ahead of the meeting, said they felt the ordinance was not in the best interest of the city, the community or the public at large.

“Personally, I see this as overreaching, because there are people who come here to peacefully protest, and I think this, while you said it’s just to go after the bad actors, when you put it in as an ordinance, it applies to everybody,” Councilmember Sean Mills said. “Just like [after] 9/11, the Patriot Act was supposed to go after just the terrorist cells, but in reality, we do know that it was used against innocent American citizens and violated, I truly believe, violated their constitutional rights.”

Mills said that while he believed the ordinance to be well-intentioned, his concern was that there would be unintended consequences that would infringe on people’s First Amendment rights. 

Specifically, Mills pointed out that the proposed restrictions would prohibit commonplace things like reusable water bottles, flags attached to poles that can be easily purchased online, signs attached to wooden sticks like those traditionally used on picket lines and even political signs that are regularly made with corrugated plastic.

“I appreciate the fact that you’re trying to protect our officers and our residents,” he said. “But I just see this as government overreach, and it’s too broad in general in nature.”

Both Cervantes and Mills also pointed out that there are already local, state and federal laws in place that allow law enforcement to act when a crime is being committed during a demonstration.

“We are a city, and our job again, is to assure that we are passing laws, you know, policies that are equitable and that are really focused on the issues of our community and the ordinance we have in place, I feel already does the job,” Cervantes said. “It is already allowing for you to apprehend individuals who are violating the law.

On the other side of the issue was Councilmember Chuck Conder, who said he supported the ordinance, because the intent behind it was not to limit free speech.

“We’re specifically talking about the bad players, and this will allow you to have a little bit more ability to engage those people and prevent it from escalating into something that nobody wants to see,” he said. “So I don’t see a problem with this right now. I think it’s something that should be tried.”

Councilmember Jim Perry agreed, noting that at least a few of the written comments submitted ahead of the meeting were from people who listed their residence as being outside of the city of Riverside.

“To be quite honest with you, and you’ve made it pretty clear, this is discretionary and not to be used against everybody,” he said, before making a motion to accept the ordinance as presented. “The intent behind it is to find the bad actor, and most likely, probably the bad actor who’s probably coming from out of town.”

And while both Perry and Conder voted to approve the ordinance, the remaining five council members voted to reject the ordinance with both Councilmember Steven Robillard and Councilmember Steve Hemenway stating that they understood the intent, but could not support the ordinance as introduced.

“The concept of keeping our residents and our public safety folks safe, I agree with that,” Hemenway said. “But as I expressed, I have some concerns, and I think maybe some revision, refining is needed for me to feel comfortable with it.”

A full recording of the Oct. 8 meeting can be found here on the city’s website.