any vending licenses is on a par with Wiley Coyote's chances
of getting the roadrunner?
Posted on 06/04/2002 3:05:10 AM PDT by 2Trievers
LACONIA — The Hells Angels will “fight on, through the judicial process” following a judge’s ruling yesterday against the motorcycle club’s effort to get vending licenses for Bike Week. Belknap County Superior Court Judge Harold Perkins ruled that club members failed to show their constitutional rights were violated by the City of Laconia when it denied 11 licenses. Perkins said the request for a restraining order against the city was extraordinary and the club did not show it would sustain irreparable harm by being denied permission to sell T-shirts.
On May 22, the Laconia Licensing Board denied the club’s applications, citing public safety concerns involving the crowded vending locations being sought at Weirs Beach. Bike Week will bring an estimated 350,000 to the state between Saturday and June 16. The city’s action, the judge said, was “not intentionally to discriminate but rather was based on a compelling government interest that could not be achieved by any less restrictive means.” Perkins said evidence showed there has been a marked increase recently in violence between the Hells Angels and other motorcycle groups nationwide. “The threat of significant violence is very strong this year compared to previous years in which this event has been held. This poses a significant risk to all attendees of the event, including local residents and the non-motorcycle affiliated visiting public, not to mention any other attendees. The risk to the petitioners is monetary in nature,” Perkins wrote. Nashua attorney P. Scott Bratton, who represented the Hells Angels at a hearing before Perkins May 29, said the club would consider all appeals and other court actions. A likely avenue of appeal is the state Supreme Court. Police Chief Bill Baker, who is also a licensing board member, said he hoped the Hells Angels would not use the denial as an excuse to cause trouble at the event. He also rejected the idea that the denial would somehow exacerbate an already volatile situation. “We are not going to let them flip this around and be able to use it as an excuse for something they do which is stupid or illegal,” said Baker. “There has been two organizations extending the olive branch, and they have been the Laconia Police Department and the licensing board. I specifically offered them a compromise on the number of vendors and told them they could publicize it as a win . . . and they walked away from that opportunity. It was a technical blunder, I think.” The Hells Angels could file applications for vending at several alternate sites in the Weirs Beach area. Licensing board members, including Baker, expressed a willingness to consider alternate locations at their May 22 meeting. But the locations could only accommodate two of the 11 applications, and Bratton said that was not enough. A clerk for the licensing board said there are no more meetings scheduled before next week. Meanwhile, Baker said he researched the question of how much money the Hells Angels have traditionally made at the vending sites over the years. He said the group has never registered to pay the state’s business enterprise tax. An organization making $50,000 a year worldwide is expected to file for the BET, he said. “They have never filed a business tax ever,” he said.
The Hell's Angels of my yoot wouldn't even be setting up a stand at an event, let alone applying for a license from "the man". Bunch of lame buffoons. What next, are they going to complain because their quiche didn't compliment their souflets?
grumble grumble grumble...
They could save a lot of time and effort by just paying their lawyers in cash and not trying to pretend they have community support for their boys who just shot a couple of citizens or rivals. Makes no sense to me.
Your biggest fan, 2T &;-)
"Do you get the feeling that the Hells Angels' chances of getting any vending licenses is on a par with Wiley Coyote's chances of getting the roadrunner?"Bikers win NH court rumble; Motorcycle Week begins today
CONCORD — The Hells Angels of New Hampshire won their court battle yesterday to run vending booths at a busy crossroads during Motorcycle Week in Laconia.
The annual event that begins today draws 350,000 to a lakeside festival centered at Weirs Beach. It features beer tents, live entertainment and motorcycle races and runs through Father’s Day.
The state Supreme Court ruled that a Laconia licensing board wrongly denied the Hells Angels a license to operate 11 booths at Weirs Beach. A Superior Court judge had sided with the city.
A breakdown in a long-standing truce between the Hells Angels and other motorcycle gangs has safety officials nervous. Just last week in Maryland, two Hells Angels and a bystander were hit in a drive-by shooting by a rival club. Similar incidents have occurred in Nevada and New York.
Concerns prompted Gov. Jeanne Shaheen to activate the New Hampshire National Guard this weekend.
The court ordered the city to issue the group vending permits right away, but allowed it to suspend them if it finds “additional credible and specific information that a strong likelihood of violence will result” if the booths stay open.
Justices said they could not conclude at this point that simply denying the permits protects the public because Hells Angels members will be at the event anyway.
As three Hells Angels in gang colors, two wearing dress shirts and neckties, listened yesterday morning, lawyers painted the case as a battle between public safety and free speech.
Laconia’s attorney Walter Mitchell told the court the Hells Angels asked for booths in a Weirs location “at the epicenter of this event . . . most difficult to police.” The city gave permits for two booths in a more open spot.
No one alleged that Hells Angels would start any trouble. But Mitchell said if the group were attacked, “it will most certainly retaliate.”
Hells Angels attorney P. Scott Bratton said the license board infringed on the group’s First Amendment rights to free speech and their right to raise funds to support the club.
The court said that closing a few vending booths is not the answer to safety concerns, the court said.
“We do not agree that relocating vending booths will reduce significantly the potential danger to the public,” the court wrote.
It added, “despite the claimed risk to public safety, the City of Laconia has made no effort to cancel New Hampshire’s motorcycle week. ‘If the First Amendment means anything , it means that regulating speech must be a last — not first — resort,’” it said, citing case law.
Bratton of Lowell, Mass., and Nashua, said the court “upheld the rights of my clients and the citizens of the state of New Hampshire. We appreciate that the court decided this case so expeditiously.”
Bratton had a sample T-shirt to show the court. It had the words “Big Red Machine” and the number 81 on the front and “Strength and Honor,” on the back.
Bratton said both the number 81 and Big Red Machine saying are known in the motorcycle subculture to symbolize the Hells Angels.
“Like the Wildcats are to UNH?” Justice Linda Dalianis asked.
Exactly, Bratton said.
Justice James Duggan said the issued sounded more like commercial rights than free speech rights.
“Why isn’t this just like any other advertisement?” he asked.
“You have to see this as a First Amendment issue in its entirety,” Bratton answered. “It’s protected speech.”
He drew parallels to parades by unpopular groups and to draft card burning as protected forms of speech that government must accommodate.
Justice Joseph Nadeau raised the concern over violence at the booths.
“There’s more at stake than the public’s rights to buy merchandise. There’s also the issue of public safety,” he said.
Bratton said the city denied the permit based on what he characterized as “abstract fear of potential violence.”
Bratton said after court, “The message of Hells Angels is that people have a right to live their lives freely the way they want, free of government or political interference.”
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