I-Team: Wrigley "No Peddling Zone"
An ABC7 I-Team Investigation
CHICAGO (WLS) -- The ABC7 I-Team reports that the "Friendly Confines" won't be quite as friendly for some if the Cubs make the National League Division Series.
A federal judge Wednesday barred the sale of a popular baseball magazine outside Wrigley Field.
The area around Wrigley Field was declared a "no peddling zone" Wednesday by a federal judge... which means that a two-dollar independent magazine called "Chicago Baseball" will not be permitted for sale as it has been for twenty years...even though vendors sold it on public property.
The decision comes in a lawsuit filed last summer by the magazine's publisher who had challenged a city ordinance after their peddlers were ticketed and ushered away.
In the hustle and souvenir hawking at Clark and Addison, the magazine peddlers seemed to fit right in.
But after nearly two decades of selling "Chicago Baseball", Chicago police told the private vendors that they were violating the city's 2006 ordinance banning peddling around the ballpark and they would have to move across the street.
The publisher, Left Field Media, filed a federal lawsuit claiming that the city law violated their First Amendment right of free speech.
A series of court hearings this summer at the Dirksen Federal Building included testimony about how the vendors were disrupting foot traffic.
The company asked for an injunction so the magazine could still be sold outside Wrigley Field.
U.S. District Judge Jorge Alonso denied the request for an injunction to stop the city from enforcing that ordinance.
That means, if the cubs win and play their first N.L.D.S. home game here on Monday...the corner of Clark and Addison will be safe from newspaper peddlers.
The federal court order found that Chicago's ordinance is constitutional because it bans all vendors not just publications. And the judge says even though it is a public street, authorities have the right to regulate traffic flow and public safety by moving vendors across from the ballpark and not directly in front of the entrances.
