Wearing logo apparel to the Garlic Festival is hardly worth all
this fuss and money. The festival’s policy is reasonable, well
founded and lawful
The Top Hatters Motorcycle Club has managed to revive its lawsuit against the Gilroy Garlic Festival and the city of Gilroy on free speech grounds.
The lawsuit stems from an incident in 2000. Four members of the Hollister chapter of the motorcycle club were wearing skull-emblazoned vests in violation of the Garlic Festival’s dress code. Festival officials would not permit them to attend the event, and Gilroy police officers escorted them from Christmas Hill Park.
Since the Top Hatters filed suit in 2001, the Garlic Festival has prevailed at every level of the court system, including a review by a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which rejected an appeal in April. Now the matter will be reviewed by the full 11-judge panel.
So far, every court has correctly determined that the incident does not involve free speech rights.
The Garlic Festival is hosted by the Gilroy Garlic Festival Association, a private, not-for-profit entity. The event supports scores of nonprofit groups every year, from athletic boosters to scouts from schools to churches. It has every right – as does a restaurant or school – to establish and enforce a dress code.
The Garlic Festival’s dress code is designed to suppress gang activity and the potential for violence, which had been a problem in previous years. Public safety is an even more compelling reason than those used by many restaurants or schools for establishing and enforcing dress codes.
Free speech is a critical right granted to all Americans, and we’re vitally aware of its importance. If free speech rights were violated in this case, we’d
be up in arms along with the Top Hatters.
But free speech rights are not at the heart of this case, as numerous courts have held. And because the members of the Top Hatters Motorcycle Club refuse to acknowledge that, the taxpayers of Gilroy and the supporters of the Gilroy Garlic Festival will have to continue to pay to defend themselves in court.
We trust that the full Court of Appeals will uphold the decision of its three-judge panel, and then, we urge the Top Hatters to save everyone involved further legal fees and hassle and drop this ridiculous lawsuit.
One or two significant violent events could literally ruin a community event that so many have nurtured with sweat for so long. The “rights” of a few motorcycle gang members to wear their logo apparel to the event simply don’t measure up.
