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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Animal Lovers Say County Targeted Them

SALT LAKE CITY (CN) - An animal rights group claims Morgan County wrote an unconstitutional ordinance aimed at preventing them from protesting a fur farm. "Free speech is quickly becoming fee speech," the director of Salt Lake Animal Advocacy Movement said in a statement announcing the federal complaint.

SLAAM plans to protest this month at a fur farm in Northern Utah. The claim that Morgan County, aware of their plains, crafted an unconstitutional ordinance requiring protesters to pay for police officers' time and ordering demonstrators to stay 1,000 feet away from the fur farm.

The animal lovers claim Morgan County Chief Deputy Kevin Edwards told them they would be charged $40 per hour per officer (about $400 an hour) for the Nov. 28 event.

SLAAM says its protest "may include picketing, marching, singing, carrying signs, chanting, handing out literature, leaflets, flyers and stickers, circulating petitions and a peaceful vigil at or near the site of a fur farm."

The group wants the ordinance enjoined. SLAAM is represented by Brain Barnard.

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