For immediate release(6/24/99)
provided through OPENAIR-MARKET NET
The latest public hearing of Mayor Giuliani's Street Vendor Review Panel was interrupted today when City Council Member Noach Dear angrily disrupted the proceedings and insisted that Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics), be removed from the hearing room.
Dear arrived an hour late to the hearing and immediately began verbally attacking Lederman's protest signs which depict Mayor Giuliani as a Hitler-like dictator. The City Council Member loudly and angrily complained that the signs were an insult to his relatives killed in the Holocaust and told the panel he would not stand for them being in the room. Lederman, who is also Jewish, responded by telling Dear he was censoring free speech, that by supporting a fascist he was an embarrassment to the Jewish people and that he was a key part of the Mayor's plan to eliminate vendors.
Dear is the chair of the City Council's Transportation Committee which, in conjunction with the Street Vendor Review Panel, is in charge of the entire vending issue. Dear also sits on the Street Vendor Review Panel and is required by law to attend all of its hearings although this was the first time he has made a personal appearance before the panel.
As the room erupted in turmoil the Panel's acting chair, Andrew Schwartz, ordered the police to arrest Lederman, who was charged with Obstruction of Governmental Administration, Disorderly Conduct and Trespassing. NYCLU Executive Director Norman Siegal witnessed the arrest and attempted to intercede on Lederman's behalf but was rebuffed by the police.
Lederman was booked at the 1st Precinct and later released. This was Lederman's 38th arrest for protesting against the Giuliani administration. Lederman was also the main plaintiff in a Federal lawsuit that street artists filed against the Mayor and which was decided in favor of the artists in 1997 by the U.S. Supreme Court. Since that decision, street artists in New York City have the same First Amendment protection as the publishers and sellers of newspapers and books.
For more information contact:
Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics), (718) 369-2111
Email: ARTISTpres@aol.com
Website: http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html