May 2007 — Nashville, Tennessee Rejects Newsrack Ordinance Imposing Fees

In May 2007, Nashville City Mayor Bill Purcell vetoed a city law adopted in April 2007 by the Nashville Metropolitan Council that would have required newspaper and shopper publishers to pay a $50 initial permit fee for every box in a multi-unit newsrack in the public right of way, and to pay an additional annual renewal fee of $10 per freestanding newsrack and $20 for multi-unit boxes, for up to four years. After four years, publishers would have been required to pay the initial permit fees again. Publishers also would have been required to display permits prominently on each box, to maintain the racks, including any coin-returns, in good repair and working order, and to provide a pedestrian pathway of at least three feet.

A local chamber of commerce and a number of Nashville civic community organizations supported the bill, but publishers and Mayor Purcell opposed it. In the spring, city council member Mike Jameson, a co-sponsor of the bill, said the proposal was drafted with constitutional strictures in mind, but the mayor's spokesperson said it may violate First Amendment rights. Despite the mayor's opposition, the Nashville Public Works department began in April to relocate newsracks in the downtown area to side streets, according to Nashville City Paper Online . The paper quoted a city Public Works official who stated that newsracks have been blocking sidewalk access for persons with disabilities and for car passengers in front of the Nashville Arena. Local publishers presented Jameson with an alternative self-regulatory proposal, but council members rejected that plan. Jameson, who invited publishers to continue to develop an alternative, reportedly stated that it took the pending bill to bring publishers to the table, and was quoted in the City Paper Online that an earlier voluntary agreement that expired in 2005 was not adhered to by publishers. Following the mayor's veto, publishers in August were working with the Downtown Nashville partnership, a local business group, to agree on voluntary newsrack standards.

First Published:
August 07, 2007