Yoga teachers sue San Diego for banning donation based classes in public parks without permits

SAN DIEGO (CN) — Early last month yoga instructor Amy Baack arrived at her usual spot at Sunset Cliffs — an affluent neighborhood with a popular recreation park that has a picturesque view overlooking the Pacific Ocean in San Diego — to start her free Sunset Slow Flow class.

But instead of seeing her yogis eager to salute the approaching sunset, Baack found barricades blocking the shoreline park and rangers ready to enforce a city law that bans commercial activity and services, including yoga, in city parks without permits.

Now Baack and another local yoga instructor are suing the city, claiming that the law violates their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and assembly to teach donation-based yoga classes in city parks.

In their suit, filed in federal court in San Diego on Monday, the teachers claim the city attorney’s office specifically added teaching yoga to a list of activities deemed “services” under a recent update of a city ordinance that regulates street vendors in certain areas of the city.

Not only should teaching yoga have been added to the city’s category of allowed “expressive activities” like “performances,” but the addition of teaching yoga as a “commercial activity” wasn’t discussed in reports or during city council meetings about the new law, the teachers claim, which violated their due process rights under the California Constitution.

By lumping in yoga with massage services, dog trainers, fitness classes, and businesses that stage areas for picnics and bonfires, “the ordinance is content-based and is therefore evaluated under strict constitutional scrutiny. Thus, in order to be constitutional, the ordinance must be narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling government interest,” the plaintiffs add.

What separates their yoga classes from other commercial activities is that their classes don’t charge students and are instead funded through donations, they add.

“Plaintiffs are engaged in pure speech, teaching yoga to anyone who wishes to listen and participate. They are not charging fees, and they are not blocking or restricting access to any public space. Passively accepting donations in a way that is not ‘inherently intrusive or potentially coercive’ is similarly protected speech under California law,” they write in their complaint.

The teachers’ complaint includes a letter identified as a “canned response” sent out by San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria’s office to the teachers after they sent a cease-and-desist letter challenging enforcement of the ordinance, and sent to anyone who asks about the ordinance.

According to the letter, “It is the city of San Diego’s responsibility to ensure equitable and safe access to our parks, bays, and beaches for all users at all times. The city of San Diego’s municipal code prohibits groups consisting of four or more people engaged in commercial recreational activities like yoga, fitness classes, and dog training from gathering in parks without a permit, and can only operate in certain designated areas. The applicable municipal code (SDMC 63.0102) has been in effect since 1993, and recent updates to the municipal code have clarified the activities for which necessary permitting applies and further outlines that it is unlawful to require someone to negotiate, establish, or pay a fee before providing a service, even if characterized as a donation.”

The San Diego City Attorney’s Office declined to comment on an ongoing lawsuit.

Bryan Pease, the attorney for the yoga teachers, lambasted the city’s permitting system, saying that the city in effect only hands out permits for one public park, Mission Bay Park, and only if teachers agree to charge students in advance for the class, which his clients don’t do, because they don’t charge a fee for their classes.

“These are free and donation based classes,” Pease said. “It is pure expressive First Amendment activity — teaching yoga to whoever wants to listen.”

The suit lists two plaintiffs, Baack and Steven Hubbard, but Pease said he was approached by at least a dozen other yoga instructors, hundreds of students and others to challenge the city’s ordinance.

The plaintiffs claim that the city increased enforcement of the ordinance, sending out park rangers to harass, intimidate, bully, and threaten them and other teachers to stop teaching their classes after they sent their letter to the mayor.

Hubbard has already been given two tickets by park rangers for violating the ordinance.

The teachers are asking the judge to find sections of the city’s ordinance unconstitutional, and prevent them from enforcing it, and to award them damages.