Judge tosses buffer zone law
California ordinance for vaccination sites ruled too broad
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A federal judge has thrown out California’s new 30-foot buffer zone designed to restrict protests at coronavirus vaccination sites, though his ruling left in place other parts of a new state law despite arguments that it infringes on free speech.
The law that took effect Oct. 8 makes it illegal to come within 30 feet of someone at a vaccination site “for the purpose of obstructing, injuring, harassing, intimidating, or interfering with that person.”
U.S. District Judge Dale Drozd ruled Saturday that the 30-foot limit, which is contained in what he called the law’s “uncommon definition of ‘harassing,’” is too restrictive.
So he issued a temporary restraining order barring the state from enforcing the “harassing” portion of the law, while leaving in place the ban on obstructing, injuring, intimidating or interfering.
Those other portions of the law “appear to more precisely target the harms that the Legislature sought to prevent and further the state’s interest in ensuring that Californians can freely access vaccination sites,” he ruled.
Opponents said the bill is written so broadly that it includes any vaccine and can also apply to anti-abortion protesters.
Alliance Defending Freedom sued on behalf of Right to Life of Central California, which is located next to a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic that offers the HPV vaccine against the human papillomavirus, but not vaccinations against COVID-19.
The anti-abortion group said the law, as written, would block its members from approaching women on the public sidewalk and street outside its own building and even in its own parking lot.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office, which defended the law, did not immediately respond to the ruling.
“There can be no doubt that access to COVID-19 vaccines is essential to ‘stemming the spread of COVID-19,’ and that a state’s interest in ensuring its citizens can access and obtain COVID-19 vaccinations is compelling,” Dozd wrote, though he said it is less clear whether that should apply to all vaccines.
Yet the groups said the law violated their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, religion and association, and Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process and equal protection when it comes to opposing abortions.
Violators could face up to six months in jail and a fine up to $1,000. But lawmakers included an exemption for picketing during a labor dispute, which Drozd said created another legal conflict.