Ordinance No. 18617 - Laserfiche WebLink

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v~'ro Before the City Council of the City of Eugene In re: The Adoption ~ of ordinance No. lg~l] } LEGISLATIVE FINDINGS Based on its own investigation, the staff reports, and the testimony and evidence received regarding Ordinance No. , the City Council adopts the fallowing findings and conclusions: 1. The population trend of the City in the past has been of increasing population growth in outlying urban areas. These populated areas have increasingly relied on large shopping centers for much of their commercial needs. Shop- ping centers which are large function as an equivalent factually to general public business districts such as the downtown mall. 2. These large shopping centers are typically in large enclaves of private parking lots. In cases such as Valley River Cen- ter and Oakway Mall there is no public property adjacent to the mall area and the retail businesses. There are few effective ways for consumers protesting shoddy or overpriced merchandise, workers challenging substandard working condi- tions, minority groups who.. seek nondiscriminatory hiring practices, or others seeking to communicate political non- commercial ideas about trade in particular goods or services to communicate those ideas to their targeted audience if contact between these groups is effectively barred. 3. Much of the communication .has to do with the very purposes and uses to which these shopping centers exist-~~-ideas about selling practices, working conditions, or hiring policies that are unique to the particular shopping center. 4. Downtown businesses adjacent to public property do not suffer from this immunity. They are subject to peaceful commentary or picketing purely by reason of their location. 5. Shopping centers of the type covered by this ordinance invite the public to use the mall areas for conversation and dis- play activities which are not incident to the commercial purposes of the shopping center. There have been, for example, at Valley River Center a number of exhibitions, display.,: and information booths from merchants or groups not leasing space in the center. Thus, not only the size and history of use Findings -~ 1