Thomas v. Chicago Park Dist

In Thomas v. Chicago Park Dist., 534 U.S. 316 [2002], a municipal park ordinance required individuals to obtain a permit before conducting large-scale events. (534 U.S. at 318.) Petitioners applied for permits to hold rallies advocating the legalization of marijuana. (Id. at 319-320.) When some of those applications were denied, petitioners challenged the ordinance as unconstitutional. (Id. at 320.) The Supreme Court rejected that challenge, stating: "The licensing scheme at issue here is not subject-matter censorship but content-neutral time, place, and manner regulation of the use of a public forum. The Park District's ordinance does not authorize a licensor to pass judgment on the content of speech: None of the grounds for denying a permit has anything to do with what a speaker might say. Indeed, the ordinance (unlike the classic censorship scheme) is not even directed to communicative activity as such, but rather to all activity conducted in a public park. The picnicker and soccer player, no less than the political activist or parade marshal, must apply for a permit if the 50-person limit is to be exceeded. And the object of the permit system (as plainly indicated by the permissible grounds for permit denial) is not to exclude communication of a particular content, but to coordinate multiple uses of limited space, to assure preservation of the park facilities, to prevent uses that are dangerous, unlawful, or impermissible under the Park District's rules, and to assure financial accountability for damage caused by the event. As the Court of Appeals well put it: 'To allow unregulated access to all comers could easily reduce rather than enlarge the park's utility as a forum for speech.' " (Id. at 322.)