Law enforcement prepared for more beach fights, but was met with a peaceful weekend. Meanwhile, the constitutionality of drafting anti-paparazzi laws is questioned.
By Nora Fleming / Special to The Malibu Times
Responding to proposed attacks that circulated on the Internet in the aftermath of the surfer-paparazzi fights two weekends ago, law enforcement escalated patrol in Malibu this past weekend. However, officials said they were pleased to report a lack of activity, other than a lone photographer posting a sign about keeping the beach public.
Meanwhile, in a press conference last week, Malibu Mayor Pamela Conley Ulich said the city is working on forming a task force to see if the city can pass a local ordinance that would protect residents and local businesses from harassment by paparazzi. Pepperdine School of Law Dean Kenneth Starr has already agreed to serve as a member of the task force, but Conley Ulich said nothing official would be determined until the fall.
“First we’re gathering information and facts, and assessing the existing laws to see if there are gaps that need to be filled,” Conley Ulich said.
The fracas between paparazzi and local surfers occurred on June 21 and June 22 when the photographers attempted to take pictures of actor Matthew McConaughey at Little Dume beach in Malibu. Local surfers and residents confronted the paparazzi. Video online shows insults and threats being traded, and physical confrontations taking place.
To ward off more fights during this past weekend, deputies from the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s station patrolled the water, and the beach in discreet locations, in addition to operating an air unit. Operations Sergeant Jeff Price said law enforcement will continue to have a presence through the Fourth of July weekend, but said he believes their early response was enough to deter potential skirmishes from occurring.
“Right now we are doing all we can do,” Price said. “We want this thing to go away, that’s why we are hitting it so hard. It has taken a life of its own. Malibu is working on an ordinance to regulate the paparazzi, which may give us another tool to use.”
An investigation into the incidents of June 21 and 22 is continuing with two detectives assigned to the case. They have requested any involved parties to come forward to help obtain more information. As of now, officials are using second-hand footage posted online for further information.
“Surprisingly the paparazzi aren’t as available [as they were in the immediate aftermath of the event],” Sergeant Price said. “I don’t know what their agenda is. I think they were just upset and want fairness, but they aren’t willing to go the full legal route to get it.”
Paparazzi task force being formed
Mayor Conley Ulich said she has been in communication with members of the American Civil Liberties Union and other cities about forming a task force and generating ideas on how to deal with the paparazzi problem.
Los Angeles City Councilmember Dennis Zine is also working with a task force made up of members from the Screen Actors Guild, government officials and law experts to see what legislation could be drafted in Los Angeles, and, hopefully, implemented in other forms in various municipalities. He said he has made offers to work with Malibu and hopes to have the task force reach solutions by the end of July.
Zine made a motion in early February 2008 to create an “anti-paparazzi” law to protect celebrities and the public from what he said is out-of-control and “increasingly aggressive” paparazzi. The motion requests an amount of space, or “personal safety zone,” between paparazzi and their subjects, including vehicles.
“It’s a continuing story, a continuing saga,” Zine said. “Paparazzi stalk the celebrity and disrupt the community. It’s like a snowball that keeps growing as it flows down the hill. They’ve become more public, more confrontational [and] more combative. We have to have something on the books or someone will be killed.”
But the constitutionality of passing new laws is questionable, in that restricting paparazzi or specific types of media would infringe upon First Amendment rights.
“It’s unlawful for a government to license the press,” said Tom Newton, legal counsel for the California Newspaper Association. “Deciding who is the legitimate press and who is not is an impossible task. I don’t see any easy solution that would be constitutional, other than aggressively using existing laws that prevent assault, battery and invasion of property.”
Newton said laws dealing with the paparazzi have been attempted in the past but failed when challenged legally.
Peter Scheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition, also expressed doubts a law could hold up, but said he “doesn’t fault [Malibu] for trying.”
“It’s possible some kind of ordinance could be drafted that would be constitutional, but I’m not sure it would do more than the existing statutes on the books already do,” Scheer said. “It’s not necessary to enact new laws. New laws add very little, if anything, to the tools that already exist.”
Scheer added that any kind of license requirement for paparazzi photographers, one of the suggestions made to Malibu, could be considered a form of prior restraint that would not hold up legally.
He suggested recording and photographing paparazzi “at their worst” and making this media available to the public through some form, such as a Web site, as an alternative solution.
“Be a little creative and shame the paparazzi from behaving themselves less like drunken teenagers in a college mixer and more like professional photographers,” he said. “Turn the camera and use it for speech as a corrective for the excessiveness of some peoples’ speech, rather than curb or restrict speech.”