Taxing Speech

There’s a sentence in Philadelphia’s new honor box license application which will make you shiver. It’s a line that epitomizes why an as-yet unenforced 1999 law to license newspaper boxes should never be put into practice.

Whether you're a big daily, little weekly, struggling nonprofit, church or just a schlepper with a Xerox, if the city goes forward with enforcement -- and you want to distribute a newspaper or a flier from box on a sidewalk -- this is what they'll want to know about you on the honor box application: Name, address and phone and fax numbers, Philadelphia business privilege license number, federal tax ID or Social Security number and Philadelphia business tax account number. The scariest part? They also say "any tax accounts previously opened for you which are unsettled or delinquent will cause a delay and may preclude the issuance of new licenses."

Whoa. First off, where in the Bill of Rights does it require you to be a registered business to distribute your ideas from a public sidewalk?

And which founding father said that your freedom of speech depends on your pleasing the city's Department of Revenue?

I can tell you from personal experience as the first publisher of City Paper, that a full-blown city tax audit is costly and time-consuming. (Even though, in the end, we owed nothing.)

But the Revenue Department would not be the only agency that newspapers, nonprofits and others would have to appease. The Streets Department, L&I and even the Center City District (CCD) would all have a say in how and where you can distribute your printed material.

A chilling effect on free speech? More like permafrost.

Fortunately, as of early September, the city put their news box licensing plans on hold in order to figure things out. Here's my advice: News boxes don't have to be officially licensed to be reasonably regulated.

For instance, it's reasonable that every news box should be weighted and chained, with a maximum of three on a pole. It's common sense that someone getting a paper shouldn't have to stand in a street or block a crosswalk. It's simple decency not to let litter gather in a news box. These are simple, enforceable rules of civil conduct which can and should be enforced right now.

Philadelphia's sidewalks can be cleaner and safer. And they can become even more the urban equivalent of a village green, hosting a multitude of voices -- intelligent and idiotic, informed and ignorant. A place that offers every imaginable view from which you may choose.

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