The city of New York had been faced by increasing trends of the vandalism of public property and unauthorized graffiti all over the streets. After a great struggle, the local government officials within the city decided to take preventive measures to curb the situation. In December 2005, the City council announced that the sale of aerosol sprays, to persons below, the age of twenty-one, within the city would be considered illegal. The ban prohibited them from possessing such items on public property other than in their homes. However, the problem continued to be in the up rise.
Six months after the issuance of the ban, the city council had arrested 5 people who were under the age of twenty-one who had just been alleged to violate the ban by possessing cans of aerosol sprays but not actually making Graffiti. In addition, 871 adults had been arrested for actually making unauthorized graffiti on the streets. The issuance of this ban created situations not conducive for college students like Lindsey Vincenty, who were specializing in arts. The students would not be able to purchase their supplies in the city and carry them around.
Unable to cope with the situation Vincenty, and a couple of students, filed a case in a federal district court on behalf of themselves and all college students against Michael Bloomberg, who was the mayor of New York City at that time. The students claimed that the ban violated their freedom of speech. “The plaintiffs claimed that, among other things, the new rules violated their right to freedom of speech”( They wanted the court to lift the ban since it made them suffer a lot. This case came to be known as Vincenty v. Bloomberg case.
After the court heard the case, it decided to issue an injunction to prohibit the implementation of the ban of young adults who were between the ages of eighteen and Twenty-one. The mayor and other local government officials within the city were uncomfortable with the case and they decided to appeal in the to the US Court of Appeals.
The US Court of Appeal affirmed the decision of the lower court arguing that the city had the right to issue the ban to avoid littering of the city but it was not justified to abuse the rights of speech within the society. The court hence decided that young adults above the age of 18 be allowed to possess cans of aerosol sprays in that the ban created a great constraint to their innocent expression( Miller 67-71).
I believe that the court’s decision to lift the ban on young adults between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one was right. First of all, it is important to look at the number of people who had been arrested for actually making graffiti on walls. There were 871. on the other hand, the people who had not been arrested for actually making graffiti were actually just five. The 871 who were arrested were adults who had actually been allowed by the stipulation of the ban to possess cans of aerosol sprays since the local government considered them to be mature. The 5 who had been arrested for alleged charges were all below twenty-one.
From these statistics, it is clear that the problem lies with the adults and not the non-adults who are below the age of 21. This means that the ban has no meaning in that it issues a ban on the people who are the age of twenty-one yet the key problem is with the adults. It would be worthwhile if the local government had decided to give the ban on adults, though it would seem unreasonable in that they are the people who are mostly affected by the behavior of making graffiti. The court was hence justified to make the decision of lifting the ban on the young adults above the age of 18 in that they were not actually the source of the problem. The ban actually violated their rights of speech by not allowing them to possess the can of aerosol sprays.
The other important reason why the decision of the court is that the ban did not take into account the careers of the art students in colleges who needed to possess all the the items that they had banned. The local government was just geared at fulfilling their own interests while they did not consider the welfare of the society that they really served. It is reasonable that the city be full of graffiti than to curtail the efforts of youngsters to develop their artistic skills. The artistic skills that these youngsters attain is going to give the society long-term gains compared to a ban of graffiti that will not benefit the society in any way.
In fact, it is easier to rectify the issue of littering a city than being able to rectify potential of the youngsters that would run down the drain. In fact, one of the changes that I would like to be changed within the resolution of the court case would be to further lift the ban to high school students who are from the age of thirteen years. This is because the ban is still causing a constraint of these student as they build up their artistic talents. They are not very different from college students.
The next important reason as to why the court was justified in its decision is that the ban was also causing a constrain to the business market. This is because after the issuance of the ban, persons below the age of twenty-one hardly bought any cans of aerosol sprays in that they all feared to be arrested for violating the law which prohibited against the possession of these products for persons within their age margins. This means that the suppliers of these products would sell less products and hence operating at a loss. There is no need to create a legislation in the city that will lead to an economic downfall bearing in mind that the city council within the city of New York derives its revenue that is obtained from the taxation of such businesses. This means that if this legislation would continue.
The economy of the city of New York would start to go down in that the legislation would be reducing the customers of all the businesses that are related to paint industries or businesses that directly use paintings to make money. For example, there are people who conduct businesses like face painting. This is a business that can be carried out by even persons who are below the age of twenty-one years and who have the talent in painting. Face painting is a recreational activity within the city. Failing to extend the rights of possessing painting equipment to persons under the age of twenty-one years would mean that the society would no longer enjoy such services.
In a nutshell, the City council will be curtailing the society from enjoying such a recreational activity at the expense of the aesthetic beauty of the city. This is against the fundamentals of utilitarianism in that the society would have the greater amount of happiness conducting activities like face-painting other than having a clean city that curtails them from having activities that would generate a lot of fun to them. From this argument, it is clear that the decision of the court concerning this case was justified in that it took into account the welfare of the business market when making this decision.
The other important reason that the decision of the court was justified is that a democratic is that a democratic society will only obey a certain legislation if the legislation aims at punishing a few who violate the law but not everybody even though one has not already violated the law. The ban that had been put into place by the city council of the city of New York aimed at punishing everybody who not only violated the law but who allegedly looked like wanting to violate the law.
Such a law is not fair within a democratic setting. This is the reason why the residents of New York did not obey the law substantially. 871 cases after just six months after the introduction of this legislation signifies that the general public was not ready to abide by the stipulations of this law. They found the law to be inappropriate and this is the reason they were not ready to respect or follow it.
The court rulings was also right in that the court created a win-win situation for the two parties(Redish 39). By allowing young adults who are already the age of eighteen years of the society, the court took into consideration that persons below this age would not feel oppressed by this legislation. However, persons between the age of eighteen and twenty-one would be feel the legislation being very oppressive in that they are almost mature and they know what is right and wrong. Denying them the right to be in a position to be in possession of painting tools would be very inconsiderate in that they already knew that defacing the streets using graffiti was already something that was very wrong for them to do. Hence there was no reason to curtail their rights.
In addition, the complainants in this case were between this age meaning that persons within this age range were the most affected by this legislation by the city council in New York. On the other hand, allowing persons above the age of eighteen years to possess painting tools within public areas would not curtail the city council from their operations of making sure that the New York Penal Law, that warned against the defacement of streets using graffiti, was followed to the letter(Funk 29).
The local government officials within the city would still have the right to arrest the people who they actually found making graffiti on public property. The law would still be in action. The complainants would be still under the law in that if they were caught making graffiti they would still be arrested. The ruling of the court case only partly regulated the provisions of the law but did not remove it. The city council did not hence literally lose the case. They actually attained a better ground that they could use to arrest the people who defaced public property.
In conclusion, it is reasonable to conclude that, the ruling of the court on the Vincenty v. Bloomberg court case was right in that it brought into light that the key problem of the issue of defacing of public property was actually on the adults and not non-adults. It also allowed students above the age of eighteen years to continue to nurture their artistic talents freely. It ensured that the business market was not affected by the enactment of the legislation. The ruling also created a situation comfortable to a free society whereby only the few who violate the law are punished and not everybody. Finally and most importantly, the ruling created a win-win situation for both parties. Due to these reasons, the court’s ruling on this case was right.
References
Funk, William, F. Administrative Law: Examples and Explanations. Louisville: Aspen Law & Business, 2009. Print.
Miller, Roger LeRoy. Fundamentals of Business Law: Summarized Cases. New Jersey: South-Western Publishers, 2008. Print.
Redish, Martin, H. Federal Courts, Cases, Comments and Questions(American casebook series). Richmond: West Group, 2006. Print.