CALIFORNIA — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this weekend signed a
bill into law making it illegal to take multiple copies of a free newspaper off
the racks in California.
The bill,
AB
2612, by Assemblymember George Plescia,
R-San Diego, makes taking more than 25 copies of a free newspaper a crime when
they are removed “to sell or barter the papers, to recycle the papers for
cash or other payment, to harm a competitor or to prevent others from reading
the paper.”
The new law, which goes into effect Jan. 1, 2007,
carries a maximum $250 fine for the first offense ranging to $500 and jail time
for repeat offenders.
“It was difficult for someone to prosecute
because there was no fair-market value associated with a [free]
newspaper,” said Plescia’s spokesperson Morgan Crinklaw. “For
people to steal newspapers and try to sell them, recycle them or hamper with
someone’s First Amendment rights because they don’t agree with their
viewpoint, this is an important issue as well.”
“We must work
to ensure that no one is able to deprive others of their First Amendment
rights,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement.
California becomes the
third state to enact a law explicitly criminalizing the taking of free
newspapers.
Colorado enacted a similar law in 2004 and
Maryland in 1994.
Newspaper thieves have also been prosecuted in other states under existing
statutes.
Schwarzenegger also signed
AB
2581 earlier this summer, a bill
crafted by Assemblymember Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, to expand the protection
of college journalists in the state following the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of
Appeals’ decision in
Hosty v. Carter.
