The district court's reliance on the
Hammerhead district court's characterizations of the letter at issue there as precatory rather than threatening or coercive is misplaced for two reasons. First, the district court in
Hammerhead found that the Brezenoff letter had no coercive impact,
551 F.Supp. at 1370 (“if the letter had any impact, it was to increase the opportunities of the plaintiffs to express their views in the media”), and we noted that “not a single store was influenced by Brezenoff's correspondence,”
707 F.2d at 39. Here, in contrast, a threat was perceived and its impact was demonstrable. Several Chamber directors testified at their depositions that they viewed the letter as reminiscent of McCarthyism, threatening them with boycott or discriminatory enforcement of Village regulations if they permitted the publication of additional statements by Rattner; the Chamber member who had been “in charge of” the
Gazette testified that following receipt of the Netburn letter, he had actually lost business and had been harassed by the Village. Further, the Netburn letter caused the Chamber to cease publication of the
Gazette; and it advised Rattner of this decision while concealing from him the fact that another issue would be forthcoming, in order to avoid having to publish in that issue material for which he had already paid. Thus, the fact that Netburn's letter and statement “were not followed up with unannounced visits by police personnel,”
733 F.Supp. at 170, should hardly have been deemed dispositive since the Chamber immediately capitulated to what may reasonably be viewed as an implicit threat.