A Belated Free Speech Victory in Georgia
Better late than never.
A U.S. District Judge has ruled that a previous Savannah ordinance requiring tour guides to pass a test and be licensed was unconstitutional.
The ruling came down Monday from Judge William T. Moore Jr. despite the fact that the ordinance was reversed by the council in 2015 after the lawsuit was filed. The city enacted the ordinance, like all good ordinances, back in the 1970s to “protect the tourism industry,” while ensuring what tour guides said was accurate, and also tacked on a $1 per person tax that tour guides must pay the city to help maintain monuments. All tour guides must be licensed by the city, too.
The Associated Press reported Tuesday that “tour guides in Savannah sued City Hall over the 1978 licensing ordinance,” arguing that “city officials were violating their First Amendment rights by deciding who was qualified to tell visitors about Savannah’s history and architecture.” Additionally, they said there were attempts to control speech by testing them on what the government believed they should share with visitors. The guides also argue the per person tax is unfair because other tourism-related professionals are not required to pay.
Judge Moore ultimately agreed with the free speech argument in Freenor v. Mayor and Aldermen of the City of Savannah, and said the city had offered no reasonable justifications for its tour guide licensing program. “Ultimately, a handful of anecdotes is not sufficient to sustain the city’s burden to demonstrate that the tour guide licensing scheme actually serves its interests,” Moore wrote. He is still weighing the tax aspect over jurisdiction concerns.
The interesting part is that judges haven’t been wholly consistent on the issue, even though the trend has tilted in favor of tour guides in recent years. A similar ordinance in New Orleans was upheld by a judge, but constitutional challenges to a Charleston ordinance landed a ruling in favor of tour guides last fall, and Philadelphia and Washington D.C. tour guide ordinances have been struck down as well. No one has challenged New York’s ordinance.
In Charleston, tour guides were required to pass a test based on a nearly 500-page manual to get a license. The U.S. District judge in that case, Judge David Norton, said that ordinance “imposes real burdens on those hoping to be tour guides in Charleston,” and that the court “has no choice but to strike the licensing law down as unconstitutional under the First Amendment.”
The courts are often slow and this ruling is obviously moot for the City of Savannah, but it’s an important — and welcomed — precedent nevertheless.
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Jessica Szilagyi
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You call this a victory for “Free Speech”? I call it a travesty of so called justice. The constitution and the 1st Amendment in no way concern the regulation of a City, County, or State from requiring individuals that represents that entity f prove they are competent to present what that entity determines is the history of that entity. Licensing is a way of controlling the number of those competent individuals in the market for representative positions. This allows an entity to control the competition and thereby the security and value of those jobs.. As a tourist who pays for those tours given by a “Tour Guide” you have the expectation that the “Tour Guide” Actually knows that history and points of interest as you tour and area. To allow a “Tour Guide” with no such proven knowledge to spout whatever happens to come to their head is a violation of trust between the tourist and the entity that offers the tours. How is the entity to determine who is qualified to present a tour with out a test and who is going to pay for the test. The cost of the license is meant to differ that cost. Do you with to pay for that cost? Who is supposed to pay for the cost of the research, creation of, and administration of those tests? Would you pay to have some half-wit spout Nazi or Islamic or Christian rhetoric while you are driven or walked around a City, Park, or County? Why are you applauding the loss of Rights of our country to govern the people who elected it? When the Courts of this Country can override the mandated responsibility of the Government we no longer have a Federated Republic but a dictatorship in the guise of a Count of Law. Would you like to buy a house from someone that is not licensed to sell that house and represent either you or the seller? This would mean that if you did buy that house and the Representative lied to you, you would have no legal recourse. Why? because you have no right to expectation that that Representative had any knowledge of the house he/she was selling and that he/she had no knowledge of the law or that he had and understanding of responsibility to either you or the seller. How about going to a doctor who is not licensed or a nurse or a teacher, no I would rather that teachers were not licensed because they produced someone as obviously ignorant of why a license is required. I guess you would rather we returned to the days when drivers and pilots need not be licensed. What are you thinking? Are you thinking? Has the liberal agenda become so indoctrinated into our society that we believe whatever a liberalist says?
I think you’re overlooking a very large component of the issue here.
First of all, the First Amendment, like the others, is a restriction on government overreach. The argument is that by telling tour guides what to read, what to test on, and charging them to do it, there is an effort to control what is said. Government has no duty to ensure that when you, as a consumer, pay money for a service (or a tour) that the stories you’re being told or the ways they’re being told are factually accurate. You assume that risk on your own when you pay for the service. There is no violation of trust – and even if there was – you voluntarily agreed to take the tour.
You’re also comparing apples to oranges when you cite doctors or nurses or pilots. In all of those instances, you’re dealing with skills, not speech. I’m not a huge proponent of licensing regulations, but there is an element of public safety and skill sets with those professions. And in addition to that, doctors, teachers, nurses, and pilots aren’t required by the city to register themselves and take a city-sanctioned test. That all occurs at the state level.
You ask a lot of questions that aren’t really relevant because state laws already prohibit the lying by realtors and even an avenue of recourse for wronged parties.
I fail to see where anyone lost rights with the court decision, which has been echoed in other areas of our country. The government has no rights, cities have no rights, only individuals do – and in this ruling they were restored.
Oh, and there is not a “mandated responsibility” of government, especially at the local level, to issue licenses. There are lots of cities and counties in the state of Georgia that don’t even offer business, occupational, or other licenses.
There should be recourse if the Tour Operator ‘advertised’ accurate history and the guide spewed revisionist history or improvised answers without basis of fact.
Two questions I have that aren’t necessarily related:
1. What is the recourse for teachers in public and private schools who teach revisionist history or improvised answers without basis of fact?
2. Do people actually use the word ‘accurate’ in their advertising and, if so, is there not already recourse in place for that type of advertising issue?
And, again, I still think a jurisdiction thing applies here. Professional licensing in THIS capacity happens at the state level and in a different capacity so as to not infringe on 1A protections. The state even regulates advertising for certain professions.
There are multiple parts to these tour licensing issues noted: jurisdiction, taxation, and potentially mandated content.
I think Free Speech rights claims have become overblown with attempts to apply it to every situation. Mind-boggling are the extremists elected officials who want their free speech protected by censoring the press and citizen’s free speech rights to refute lies and offer their own opinions.
Would you pay to have some half-wit spout Nazi or Islamic or Christian rhetoric while you are driven or walked around a City, Park, or County?
That’s where the free market comes in.
Tour companies are increasingly reliant on word-of-mouth advertising, the bulk of which comes via sites like TripAdvisor, Yelp, Google, etc. If someone is opening their tour with “let me tell ya how the Jews are ruining Savannah,” odds are that’s going to make its way into a negative TripAdvisor review.
I get what Savannah was trying to do, but there are less restrictive means to accomplish it. For example, the City could offer (rather than mandate) a course on Savannah history/architecture/culture/etc. and provide those that successfully complete that course with a special designation or certification. Tour companies could then tout their tours are led by “Savannah-certified” guides.
Sounds about right for this Judge… https://www.savannahnow.com/column/opinion/2017-06-24/ann-woolner-federal-judge-lets-litigation-languish-his-courtroom
some of the most popular tours in the city are ghost tours, this is just opening the tour guides need to just start making shit up on these ghost tours…color me alarmed…
Considering ghosts aren’t real, I would contend they’re already making it up.
Heard a few years ago while eating my lunch in Madison Square from a walking tour guide.
“Now Savannah allowed Sherman into the city over Christmas to heal after suffering from some burns, as any good Christians would…”