Civil liberties advocates said a proposal to ban loitering on traffic medians in Bangor would restrict free speech. The ordinance —which came up for discussion at a city council committee meeting on Monday — would prohibit people from lingering on narrow medians in high-traffic areas. Violators would first be given an order to disperse, and then be subject to fines up to $2,500.
Documents from the committee meeting cite loitering as a public safety concern. But Molly Curren Rowles, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, said traffic medians are critical spaces for public advocacy.
"There have been many of these cases in recent years. And almost uniformly, they have been found to be violative of the freedom of speech and free expression," she said. "So I think it's something that comes up perennially, but also that there's a pretty clear constitutional framework in which we have to understand what cities are able to do."
Curren Rowles said the group hasn't yet seen evidence of safety issues.
"What we have heard a lot about are that people who are unhoused are feeling like they're being pushed out. And so this can be one avenue for kind of othering folks who are unhoused and restricting their freedom of movement and their freedom of expression," Curren Rowles said.
Curren Rowles added she believes any public safety issues can be resolved without threats of citations or arrests.
A similar law that targeted loitering on traffic medians in Portland in 2013 was challenged by the ACLU of Maine, and struck down by a federal judge.
