§ 49-501. Findings.

The city council finds and declares that:

(1)

The uncontrolled placement and maintenance of news racks in the public right-of-way presents an inconvenience and danger to the safety and welfare of persons using such right-of-way; including pedestrians, persons entering and leaving vehicles and buildings, and persons performing essential utility, traffic control and emergency services.

(2)

News racks located so as to cause an inconvenience or danger to persons using the public right-of-way, and unsightly news racks located therein, such as news racks that are poorly maintained or have been defaced with graffiti, constitute public nuisances.

(3)

As a matter of public necessity, the city must protect children and unconsenting adults in and on its public streets, sidewalks, transportation facilities and other public rights-of-way from viewing public displays of offensive sexual material. When such displays are thrust indiscriminately upon unwilling audiences of adults and children such displays constitute assaults upon individual privacy.

(4)

These factors are an unreasonable interference with and obstruction of the use of the public right-of-way, are an unwarranted invasion of individual privacy, are injurious to health, offensive to the senses, and constitute such an obstruction of the free use of property as to interfere in the comfortable enjoyment of life and property by the entire community.

(5)

The council recognizes that the use of such public right-of-way is historically associated with the sale and distribution of newspapers and other publications, that it is in the public interest to encourage the wide distribution of such publications, and that, therefore access by news racks to those areas for such purposes should not be denied but rather regulated and protected.

(6)

Since representatives of newspapers and other periodicals ("publishers") are required to visit their news racks at least each day of the week that a new edition is published and staff or independent contractors who make these visits are also required to repair or get repaired any news rack that is not operating correctly, to maintain news racks, and to see that trash is cleared from inside and around news racks, therefore, the publishers who issue a new edition at least five (5) days a week are more likely to advance significant government interests in cleanliness and good maintenance than publishers who issue a new edition less frequently.

(7)

"First come, first served" and the related concept of respecting the permitted locations in use by publishers reflect the principle that the public forum for news information and advertising should be preserved and respected by any plan affecting distribution protected by the First Amendment. For this reason, a news rack already in place and properly permitted at a location will have priority rights to that location over any subsequent application.

(8)

Readers of newspapers and other periodicals come to rely on the availability of publications at certain places on the street and at certain kinds of places. The public interest is served when the positions of publications match reader expectations.

(9)

Publishers are entitled to content neutral regulations that allocate newsrack space on the basis of a reasonable restriction of time and place and manner, with the first newspaper requesting a specific, allowable location being allocated said location.

(10)

Council specifically finds that the preservation and protection of Denver's parks, parkways, park resources and infrastructure, as well as protecting and enhancing the experience of the users of said parks and parkways, requires that the manager of parks and recreation have authority to reasonably regulate placement of news racks in parks and parkways.

(11)

The council further finds that these strong and competing interests require a reasonable accommodation which can only be satisfactorily achieved through the means of an ordinance designed to accommodate such competing interests by regulating the time, place and manner of using such news racks.

(12)

The council further finds that after being in effect for over two years this division requires modifications based on the experience of both the city and the newspaper community with the ordinance. Those modifications are incorporated in this reenactment.

(Ord. No. 918-01, § 1, 10-29-01; Ord. No. 281-04, § 1, 5-3-04)