Skip to code content (skip section selection)
Compare to:
SEC. 28.01. HANDBILLS – DISTRIBUTION.
   (Amended by Ord. 168,321, Eff. 12/13/92.)
 
   (a)   No person shall distribute or cause or direct the distribution of any handbill to passengers on any streetcar or throw, place or attach any handbill to or upon any vehicle.
 
   (b)   For the purposes of this section, there shall be a presumption that the business, commercial activity or person whose name appears on any handbill so thrown, placed or attached, threw, placed or attached such handbill, or caused or directed that such handbill be thrown, placed or attached to or upon any vehicle. Said business, commercial activity or person may rebut the foregoing presumption by the presentation of competent evidence that it, him or her did not cause or direct that any handbill be thrown, placed or attached to or upon any vehicle. In lieu of the use of this presumption, criminal liability may be established by direct evidence that the business, commercial activity or person whose name appears on the handbill caused or directed that such handbill be thrown, placed or attached to or upon any vehicle.
 
   The freedom of press guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Federal Constitution, and made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment has no application to the distribution of hand-bills on the streets for purely commercial advertising.
   Valentine v. Chrestensen, 316 U. S. 52, 54; 86 L. Ed. 1262.
   Jamison v. Texas, 318 U. S. 413, 417; 87 L. Ed. 869.
   Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105, 108; 87 L. Ed. 1292; 146 A. L. R.
 
   The rule as regards purely commercial advertising is the same under Article 1, Section 9 of the California Constitution.
   In re Porterfield, 28 Cal. 2d 91,101; 167 A. L. R. 675.
 
   A City ordinance making it unlawful to deposit advertising matter in or on motor vehicles parked on streets does not violate the constitutional guaranties of freedom of speech and of the press, and does not constitute an arbitrary and unreasonable restraint on the conduct of a lawful business.
   People v. Uffindell 90 Cal. App. 2d Supp. 881. (ordinance reading “it shall be unlawful to deposit . . . in or on any motor vehicle parked on any street in the City of San Diego . . . any . . . advertising matter.”)