Dan's Papers - August 10, 2007 - Uninvited, Police Take Free Publications from Stores in Southampton

Last Saturday morning, some people entered the stores in the Village of Southampton and demanded that the bundles of free newspapers be removed from the locations where they were, because by the end of the day, if the bundles were not moved, they would be moved for them. This occurred in at least fifteen locations that we know of. When the bundles were not moved -- they were outdoors on private property -- the people demanding that this happened removed them themselves, taking the bundles out to the street and putting them in vehicles and taking them away, presumably to the dump. The people were uniformed police officers from the Village of Southampton and the vehicles were police cars. There is no law in any state in the union that would allow a police officer without a warrant to come into your house or business and cart something off like this. It is a violation of basic human rights, of the constitution protecting private property and particularly of the freedom of the press. For example, without having this report made available you, you might not have become aware that this had happened.

Doing this is interfering with a legal business transaction. And to that extent, it is actionable and a party can sue and collect financial damages for loss of revenue. For that reason, and since Dan's Papers is one of those publications being removed -- surely the oldest and first of them -- we are closely monitoring which stores are being affected and how this plays out.

The stores that reported that they had been visited by police were Engel and Volker's, Crescendo, Brahmin, Antique Rug Galleria, Marie Chantalle, Radio Shack, Stubbs and Wootton, Hollis Reh and Shariff, J. McLaughlin, Chrysalis, Willy Nilly, TC, Hatchlings, Anyas, London Jewelers, Style Paris and Gazelle. There are probably others. Different storeowners were told different things. Some were told to remove this merchandise immediately or it would be removed for them, others were told that it had to be removed by the end of the day and others were simply inspected.

Going around were officer Dave Dorchek and the new Southampton Town Police Ordinance officer, Angel Perez.

On Saturday afternoon, when I heard of this, I called Mayor Epley and left him a message. He returned my call on Sunday morning and said he did not know that anyone was doing this and that merchandise that is displayed in stores in the village is not the concern of the police and that it would not continue. In fact, he would endeavor to return to us any Dan's Papers or Dan's Papers racks that had been removed.

Also on Saturday morning, I called the Chief of Police, Billy Wilson and was told that he was not in and would not be available until Monday morning. I was also told, when I asked which law or ordinance was being enforced when this material was being removed, that I should call the Chief on Monday morning.

On Monday morning, I called the Chief again and was put into the voicemail of his assistant, a woman named Marge Bernhardt. I then also called the Chief Ordinance Inspector, Angel Perez, who, I was told by an operator, was not in that day, but I could leave a voicemail for him, which I did.

By midday Tuesday, I had spoken to both the Chief of Police and the Ordinance Inspector.

Chief Wilson told me that the whole thing had been his idea, based on what he observed to be a "horrendous" situation on Saturday morning, but the plan was only to remove newspaper and magazine bundles that had migrated to the sidewalks and trash cans, not to anything on private property. He said it would not happen again. And he appreciated my pointing it out.

"Officer Dorchek, I think, misunderstood me. It is not our issue to deal with material that is inside the stores or on private property outside of the stores."

Ordinance Officer Perez also apologized, but said that he had accompanied Officer Dorchek on the walk, not only on Main Street and Jobs Lane but also on Hampton Road and that at no time did either of them remove any publications without asking the merchant's permission.

This contradicted what some of the storeowners had told us.

"None of the people wanted to lose your paper," he told me. "It was the other publications. Some of these publications just appeared on their property without asking. They didn't want them. They didn't know what to do. They told us to just take them."

I suggested that, when two officers in uniform show up to say they are enforcing an ordinance and want the papers taken away from outdoor private locations, they might be intimidated into saying 'yes.' Or, they might have misunderstood what they had been asked.

"We know of stores that refused to give up their publications. And we know several that insisted they had the right to display publications in stands on their property outside and refused to move them."

Overall, I think it is fair to say that on Friday and Saturday in some of our downtown villages in the summertime, there is often an issue involving the proper display of newspapers and magazines on our streets. The publications, many of them quite beautiful, serve an important purpose by providing news, information and schedules of upcoming events. But there is, at the start of the weekend, often a lapse between delivery and proper display. And sometimes things get messy. Sometimes, the merchants simply put the bundles of papers out by the village trashcans or on park benches. They then have to be removed by the police.

It is the law of the land that anybody with a magazine or newspaper can display them unhindered on public property and it also the law of the land that they can deliver papers or magazines to merchants if they have that merchant's permission to do so.

In the recent past, a group of merchants, publishers and village officials in Southampton had met to discuss this problem. The meetings were initiated by Mayor Romanowsky in this village in the last few months of his term. And the issue was then taken up by the current mayor, Mark Epley. The group came up with a plan -- a good one, I thought.

The plan was that publishers would be asked to survey the stores downtown and get a list of storeowners who wanted to receive their product. They would get signatures. And these signatures would serve as legal transactions between publisher and merchant to deliver and receive merchandise. The lists would be provided to the Chamber of Commerce and to the Village Mayor, with the understanding that this was provided voluntarily and was to be kept confidential. Next, the Mayor's office would gather up the names and phone numbers of the publications and their publishers and put them on a list to be sent to each merchant. Merchants could make a phone call to ask a publisher to pick up what was left or discontinue future delivery to them if they wished. And if this was not done, they could hire someone to remove the material and send the publisher the bill.

As for the village, material thrown away would be picked up by the local workers, who pick up any material left in garbage cans. As for publications left loose or bundled on the public sidewalks or streets, (unwanted by the merchants), they could be treated as litter, and in certain cases, the litterers ticketed.

It is complicated. I recall, at one store on Main Street in Southampton, talking to an owner and then leaving a bundle of papers with him. He seemed happy and thanked me for it. Out on the sidewalk about twenty feet away, I came upon a friend, and was talking to him for awhile when the man I had just talked to in the store walked out carrying the newspaper bundle and placed it next to a trash can.

This past spring, as we have done for each of the past three springs, I went out with other employees of Dan's Papers to every merchant in town and created lists of storeowners who wanted our publications. Copies of these lists were sent to the Mayor. Other publishers, when asked to provide these lists, also did this. Others did not.

The situation, however it works, has to be a group effort with everyone working together. Indeed, in many villages now, the situation seems to have improved with the magazines and newspapers on display where the merchants want them and not on display where they don't.

The real blessing of all of this is this -- as long as the merchants, in great enough numbers, accept free newspapers and magazines in their stores, it will never be necessary to junk up the street corners with metal newspaper boxes - which the publishers have every legal right to place there, but who have so far declined to do because of the welcomes they receive in the stores.