Columbia outlaws public gatherings
Warner M.Montgomery Warner@TheColumbiaStar.com

The City of Columbia Ordinance No.: 2006- 067, Article III, Division 1, Sec. 22- 72 Congregating on streets and sidewalks states:

All persons are forbidden from

congregating and obstructing the

sidewalks or streets in front of

churches,hotels, business places, and

other buildings of public resort within

the corporate limits of the city.The

chief of police and any member of the

police force shall have power to arrest

and commit any person offending in

any of the provisions of this section.

Sec. 22-74 Pedestrians on sidewalks states:

All pedestrians shall be

required to keep to the right and to avoid unnecessary stops on the sidewalks

so as to avoid blocking of the

sidewalk, crosswalks, or the entrance

to any store or building.

According to this law, any police officer is obligated to breakup any group standing in front of a church, hotel, or business and to arrest all those in the group. Also, any pedestrian who walks to the left on the sidewalk or stops unnecessarily can likewise be arrested.

This is no way for a 21st century American city to treat its citizens. Obviously adopted in the 1950s or 1960s as an attempt to stop civil rights activity, it is now an obscene statement by a civilized municipality.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees

the right of the people peaceably

to assemble. Surely, the City of Columbia has no legal right to stop its citizens from assembling peaceably on the way to church, a hotel, or shopping. Or from walking on the wrong side of the sidewalk.

This law is obviously not enforced today. But it could be. If Mayor Bob Coble and city council is truly interested in having good faith with its citizens, black and white, they would abolish this antiquated law. If they do not, it will show they reserve the right to enforce this law at some future date. Perhaps, they see a time when some new minority group needs to be put in its place by police action. I'm very concerned because I might be in that group, after all, I am an activist gray panther with demands.