A couple years ago, someone under the veil of night passed out vile antisemitic flyers to homes in Sandy Springs.
In response, the city last week passed the “overnight door-to-door soliciting and canvassing” ordinance. It prohibits anyone from knocking on doors from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. to sell goods or services or canvass for political purposes.
So far, so good. Who wants neo-Nazis — or even gutter-guard peddlers — ringing your doorbell at 10 p.m.?
The new law goes one step further and forbids anyone from dropping pamphlets or advertisements on residents’ properties during that time period. It also bans free newspapers being thrown on driveways overnight.
That’s a problem for the Sandy Springs Crier, which distributes newspapers each week to 12,000 homes. The new law attacks their delivery model.
Hans Appen, CEO of the company that owns the Crier, said overnight is the best time to deliver papers, as most of his drivers work 9-5 at something else. Also, he added, “There’s less traffic. Less kids and dogs out there. It’s safer.”
And now illegal.
Credit: Hayden Sumlin/Appen Media
Credit: Hayden Sumlin/Appen Media
Newspapers have been decimated in recent decades, what with the internet and changes in reading habits. Now add well-meaning politicos to their list of woes.
But the weird thing, and I’m not necessarily a conspiracy theorist, is that the city of Sandy Springs certainly has a reason to stick it to the newspaper. For the past two years, the Crier, and its owner, Appen Media, has been locked in a protracted legal battle with Sandy Springs concerning the state Open Records Act. For years, the city’s police department has thumbed its nose at the law by releasing incident reports that say virtually nothing.
Covering crimes and public safety is the meat and potatoes of small community newspapers. The police blotter is important to the public so they know what’s going on in their community.
However, small newspapers often back off when facing off against governments because public officials can freely spend taxpayers’ money in legal battles to continue their secretive ways. Appen has, to its credit, dug in and forced the issue.
Appen Media, which operates papers in Alpharetta, Roswell, Johns Creek, Dunwoody, Milton, Forsyth County and now Decatur, bought the Crier in 2022 and launched its initial issue that October.
The paper started getting police reports, like it did with the other cities, but “Sandy Springs stuck out like a sore thumb,” Hans Appen told me.
The Crier and the city went back and forth for months, negotiating, exchanging stern attorneys’ letters and the newspaper getting a favorable opinion from the state’s attorney general’s office.
State law says PDs shall release “initial incident reports.” Normally, they contain the who, what, when and where of an incident, with a short narrative, usually written by the responding patrol officer. Additional investigative reports are not open records.
However, Sandy Springs police, headed by longtime Chief Kenneth DeSimone, has gotten cute, often releasing a one-line narrative of the crime/incident, which is often pure drivel.
Credit: Katja Ridderbusch
Credit: Katja Ridderbusch
I checked with some my Atlanta Journal-Constitution colleagues who forwarded me several reports they have received from the department. All are sparse. Here are a couple:
— May 11, 2023, I, FTO Goodwin/Badge Number 311, responded to 2 Concourse Pkwy in reference to an indecent exposure.
— On 12/09/2023, I responded to a person shot at 8601 Roberts Dr.
The Crier recently got a friendly ruling from the Georgia Court of Appeals in the matter. The case slogs on, perhaps one day going to trial if the city remains hardheaded.
Appen told me the city has also not been releasing employee salary information, as other cities do.
Now, the law to limit newspaper delivery overnight didn’t start with anger toward the Crier. It came because of the antisemitic leafletters (the AJC and other subscription-based periodicals are exempt from the law because residents have “asked” for their delivery).
The city notes the ordinance was drafted by the Anti-Defamation League. The council also created an 8-foot “buffer zone” between protesters or for people passing out flyers if a person tells them to go away.
City Attorney Dan Lee repeatedly told the council the wording of the pamphleting ban had to be “content neutral,” meaning a flyer for a Boy Scout raffle, is the same as a Jew-hating leaflet, is the same as the Crier.
Credit: Appen Media
Credit: Appen Media
The city’s flak noted that the police are complying with the open records law. In its reasoning, the city is pulling out almost all wording from incident reports and putting them in “supplemental” reports. A total weasel-word explanation. The city added that doing otherwise “could compromise public safety and negatively impact active investigations.”
On failing to release employee salary information, well, the city again cited “security.”
“Security” or “public safety” have been blanket excuses for nondisclosure from many recalcitrant public bodies. If we release that the bad guys win.
Hans Appen realizes the nighttime ban came about because of the hateful flyers.
“I have no reason to see (banning newspaper delivery) was the reason; but it sure feels like it,” he told me.
Credit: Appen Media
Credit: Appen Media
No, I think the city’s mind trust simply sees screwing over the pesky Crier as simply a bonus. You know, a win-win, as they say.
And one day, we’ll be hearing about some poor fellow in a 2001 Corolla getting detained by Sandy Springs police for delivering the news.
I can almost see the report:
June, 2, 2025, responding officer stopped car throwing newspapers.
Anyways, the Crier would sure have a good community newspaper scoop.
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