Philip Rucker writes in the Washington Post, Gaithersburg Ordinance Ruled Unconstitutional:
A controversial Gaithersburg ordinance making it illegal for anyone to seek work or hire workers on most city streets, sidewalks and parking areas was deemed unconstitutional in an opinion released yesterday by Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler.
“The portions of the Gaithersburg ordinance that are not preempted by state law regulate speech in a traditional public forum,” they wrote in the opinion. “While those provisions are content neutral, they are not narrowly tailored to serve the designated purposes of public safety and traffic flow.
“Accordingly, in our view, the ordinance would not survive a constitutional challenge.”
Sebastian Montes writes in the Gazette, Gaithersburg anti-solicitation law spurned by AG
Gaithersburg Mayor Sidney A. Katz and the City Council passed the measure in February 2007 in the face of years of struggling with day laborers looking for work every morning along the city’s Route 355 corridor.
The measure makes curbside hires a misdemeanor for both hirers and workers. However, they agreed to delay enforcing it until the county opened its day-laborer center just outside city limits. The center opened in April.