LOS ANGELES - The ACLU of Southern California announced a settlement today in Lifestyles Organization (LSO) v. Stroh, a case involving an erotic arts exhibition in Palm Springs in late July and early August of 1997. The Department of Alcoholic Beverages Control (ABC) threatened to yank the alcohol license of the host convention center. With the help of the ACLU of Southern California, LSO sought and received a temporary restraining order, and the erotic arts exhibition proceeded as planned, drawing 2,000 attendees. LSO pressed the case, seeking damages, attorney's fees, and a guarantee that ABC would not enforce the regulations against LSO in the future. Earlier this year, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling that made it clear that the Department's enforcement of the regulations was unconstitutional. Since that time, the parties in the case have been working towards a settlement. A settlement was announced to the District Court yesterday.

"The Department of Alcoholic Beverages Control was trying to control more than beverages," said Peter Eliasberg, Staff Attorney at the ACLU of Southern California. "The beverage bureaucrats went after speech they thought was inappropriate. That's not their job, and they're not equipped to weigh the Constitutional issues involved. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals made that clear earlier this year. We're pleased that the ABC will cease enforcing these unconstitutional regulations."

The settlement, announced today, requires that ABC cease enforcing against LSO California Administrative Code, ﾌ_143.4 in its entirety and ﾌ_143.3 as it relates to visual arts. the settlement also requires ABC to pay $12,500 dollars in damages to LSO and to pay LSO's attorneys' fees.

"The ABC's license to censor has been revoked," said Dan Tokaji, staff attorney at the ACLU of Southern California. "The regulations at issue practically invited abuse by low-level bureaucrats, using the threat of losing a liquor license to stifle free speech. These rules give government the power to restrict public discourse - exactly what our country's founders had in mind when they enacted the Bill of Rights."

LOS ANGELES The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today upheld a preliminary injunction that stops the City of Los Angeles from enforcing its unconstitutional "aggressive solicitation" ban. When the city passed the ordinance, Municipal Code ﾌ_ 41.59, in July 1997, the ACLU of Southern California filed suit challenging the ordinance on First Amendment grounds; a preliminary injunction was granted, and the city appealed.

"This order is the handwriting on the wall for the city," said ACLU of Southern California staff attorney Peter Eliasberg, "It's a clear signal that the court sees this ordinance as unconstitutional. It's time for the city to put this issue behind it and strike this ordinance."

The ordinance defines "aggressive solicitation" so broadly that simply making a request for assistance a second time when someone has indicated no desire to be solicited would be prohibited. It also bans any type of solicitation in certain areas: near an ATM machine, near public transit stops, or on public transit vehicles, for example. It is written so broadly that it could be applied to solicitors from the Salvation Army, Greenpeace, or the Busriders Union -- all of whom solicit public support in the public areas this ordinance marks as off-limits, and it also empowers numerous public, private, and quasi-public officials to determine whether or not free speech will be permitted, without offering any guidance about how those decisions should be made.

"This ordinance and others like it are a gag order on the most needy," said Eliasberg. "Essentially it says, 'You can talk about the weather to anyone, whether or not they want to listen -- but don't tell someone twice that you're hungry.' That's a callous and capricious restriction, one that may serve the comfort and convenience of those who are better off, but is completely inconsistent with our Constitutional rights."

"The First Amendment is for everybody," said Eliasberg, "rich or poor."

LOS ANGELES - The effect of California's welfare reform policies will be less punitive and capricious as a result of a settlement approved by the court yesterday in Nickols v. Saenz, a lawsuit filed by civil rights groups on behalf of poor women and children statewide. The lawsuit challenged the state's application of a "family cap" policy, called the Maximum Family Grant rule, to welfare families without giving them proper advance notice.

The lawsuit, filed by the Western Center on Law and Poverty, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and the National Center for Youth Law, focused on the rights of parents and teens receiving welfare (now called CalWORKs), to fair warning about California's "Maximum Family Grant" (MFG) rule. This rule denies benefits to any baby born to a family that is already receiving welfare. It applies to adult parents who have a second child, but it also applies to teens who have their first child while living in a family on welfare.

The lawsuit challenged the state's failure to warn families about the implications of the MFG rule for teen parents. The facts of the individual plaintiffs' cases highlight the injustice of penalizing teen parents who had never heard of the MFG rule, by denying aid to their newborn babies. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit included four young parents struggling to finish high school, and to feed, clothe and house themselves and their babies, on as little as $305 per month.

"The stated purpose of the Maximum Family Grant rule was to influence welfare families to delay having more children," said Clare Pastore, staff attorney at the Western Center on Law and Poverty. "But without clear advance notice, the rule wasn't even consistent with its own dubious premise that poor families base childbearing decisions on welfare benefits -- it was simply punitive."

The settlement provides relief to young parents and their children currently suffering from the unfair effects of the MFG rule, by restoring benefits to their children. In the future, teens who have babies after receiving proper notice will still be subject to the MFG rule, but only until they become adult heads of households. The settlement also requires the state to improve its notices to families about the MFG rule, so that heads of families will understand and explain the impact of the rule on teens living at home.

"More than any other group in our society," said Rocio Cordoba, staff attorney at the ACLU of Southern California, "poor women and children live the results of other people's rhetoric and social experimentation based on unfounded stereotypes. They understand through hard, real-life experience how laws can be used unfairly to express society's hostility."

"This case involved serious issues of economic survival and basic human dignity," said martha Matthews, staff attorney at the ACLU of Southern California. As a result of the settlement, thousands of children will receive desperately needed aid, and families will have fair warning about the MFG rule in the future."