Sandy Springs repeals protest ‘buffer zone’ legislation

After the ordinance was approved April 1, Lee said the American Civil Liberties Union and the Anti-Defamation League were concerned about its constitutionality. The ACLU of Georgia had characterized the legislation as “broad and dangerous overreach” and warned that the organization would challenge it in court.

“I’m convinced that a challenge to the ordinance would not be worth the gain from it,” Lee told council members before Tuesday’s vote.

Along with the buffer zone legislation, the council on April 1 approved two other ordinances that remain in effect.

One prohibits blocking another person from entering or leaving a public facility or place of worship. The other bans soliciting and canvassing on residential properties between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m., which supporters say will address the problem of people leaving antisemitic or other hateful flyers outside homes.

“As the city attorney mentioned, there are two really strong ordinances that you passed on April 1, which will provide the protection of the citizens — of everybody in Sandy Springs,” Eytan Davidson, Southeast regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, told council members at Tuesday’s meeting.

“This is the prudent move in terms of repealing this particular ordinance,” he said of the buffer zone law.

An earlier draft of the buffer zone ordinance, which was written using model language from the Anti-Defamation League, had prohibited anyone protesting or handing out flyers from going within 8 feet of anyone, without permission, along a sidewalk or within a 50-foot radius from an entrance or exit to a school or place of worship.

Lee, however, said he removed the 50-foot radius condition before the council approved the legislation April 1, in a 4-2 vote. Removing the 50-foot stipulation, Davidson said, made the ordinance that was approved problematic on free-speech grounds.

Cory Isaacson, legal director of the ACLU of Georgia, said at Tuesday’s meeting that the change made the ordinance “exceptionally egregious in its unconstitutionality, having no parameters at all.”

She added that the prior version that was tied to a 50-foot radius also was constitutionally problematic because it would have covered “a huge amount of public space in the city.”

“The original language was too broad,” City Council member Melody Kelley said in an interview Thursday. “Then we made it worse.”

Kelley and Council member Jody Reichel voted against the buffer zone ordinance.

Councilman Andy Bauman, who voted in favor of the ordinance on April 1, heaped criticism on Lee and Mayor Rusty Paul at Tuesday’s meeting for bringing forth the legislation through a “flawed process” and for asking the council to vote on language that wasn’t fully vetted.

“And when I asked the city attorney during the meeting whether the ordinance met the constitutional standards of time, manner and place, we were told, and I quote: ‘No doubt about it,’” Bauman said. “Now, just a few weeks later, we’re being told the opposite.”

Paul could not immediately be reached for comment on Thursday.

Lee, in an interview, disagreed with Bauman’s characterization of the process and said he was “a little taken aback.”

“It was not rushed,” Lee said. “We aired it at two different work sessions. This has been out in the public for a long time.”