We agree with the Coalition that the Parade Ordinance's language provides less guidance to officials than the standards considered in
Cox and
Thomas. In
Thomas, the ordinance allowed the city to deny a permit to use the park if, among other reasons, the activity “would present an
unreasonable danger to the health or safety” of the public or park employees.
534 U.S. at 319 n. 1, 122 S.Ct. 775 (emphasis added). The statute in
Cox, as interpreted by the state's supreme court, instructed the municipality to license a march, provided “the convenience of the public in the use of the streets would not thereby be
unduly disturbed.”
312 U.S. at 576, 61 S.Ct. 762 (emphasis added). The Parade Ordinance, however, allows officials to restrict marchers' access to the streets whenever such a restriction is in the undefined “interest of” traffic and pedestrian safety. This language gives officials less guidance and more leeway than those standards the Supreme Court and we have previously approved.
See Long Beach Area Peace Network, 522 F.3d at 1027 (approving statute giving officials the discretion to “restrict[ ] events to city sidewalks, portions of a city street, or other public right-of-way,” but only when such restrictions are “
necessary to ... protect the safety of persons and property and to control vehicular and pedestrian traffic” (internal quotation marks omitted) (emphasis altered));
City of Richmond, 743 F.2d at 1349 n. 1 (approving statute that required approval of parade permits unless they would place an “
undue burden upon the movement of vehicular traffic” (emphasis added));
see also Field Day, LLC v. County of Suffolk, 463 F.3d 167, 180 (2d Cir.2006) (approving statute that, as construed, “allows the official only to consider whether a proposed mass gathering presents
unreasonable risks to life or health”);
cf. Shuttlesworth, 394 U.S. at 149–50, 89 S.Ct. 935 (holding that statute granted excessive discretion in allowing the city to deny a parade permit if “in its judgment the public welfare, peace, safety, health, decency, good order, morals or convenience require that it be refused”).