City of Malibu Explores Legal Options for
Curbing Paparazzi
• Law Creating Personal Safety
Buffer Zones Is under Consideration
While other cities have floundered in
efforts to curb what is viewed as aggressive and invasive
behavior by photographers who target celebrities, the City
of Malibu is preparing to enter the legal fray.
The photographers, most of whom are
freelance, are usually dubbed paparazzi, the plural of
paparazzo (from the name of a character in the Fellini film
“La Dolce Vita”).
They have come under increased public
fire for engaging in unsafe behavior in public places, such as
reckless driving and jostling people who block their shots.
At its quarterly goal-setting meeting last
week, the city council approved efforts to frame a measure to
address creation of “safety buffer zones” or other
ways to protect people from endangerment or harassment.
Mayor Pamela Conley Ulich said the
city’s approach could be to engage outside independent
counsel that reflects all sides of the U.S. Constitutional
issues “to draft and defend” an ordinance.
Conley Ulich said Ken Starr, dean of
the Pepperdine University School of Law and the former
Independent Counsel in the Clinton impeachment effort, who is
currently representing Blackwater Security on alleged
atrocities in Iraq, and Nadine Strossen, the president of the
American Civil Liberties Union, have expressed interest in
working on this at no charge to the city.
The pairing of these constitutional
extremes (the ACLU recently published “Revisiting Our
Rights”—a First Amendment treatise) prompted
some raised eyebrows in the chambers.
Testifying on behalf of curbs on the
paparazzi was Jolene Dodson, the self-described
“celebrity assistant” for Pierce Brosnan. She
relayed how Brosnan was eating lunch with a friend in a
Malibu establishment a day earlier when “he was attacked
by [paparazzi] who surrounded him.”
Dodson said Brosnan had to call the police.
She said that establishments should hire security guards to
protect people from paparazzi, then added, “We think the
restaurant owners encourage [paparazzi]” to get
publicity.
Mayor pro tem Andy Stern said, “It is
certainly a threat.” The council unanimously agreed to
make this a priority issue and ask City Attorney Christi Hogin
to meet with these experts to see what ensues. Council members
said they want any arrangements in writing.
City Manager Jim Thorsen reminded council
members that First Amendment clashes have derailed most of the
attempts to curb the paparazzi so far, adding with regard to
Conley Ulich’s statement that the experts’ work
would be “free” that there would be hidden staff
time costs associated with any legislation that might be
proposed.
The city manager indicated that his
main concern is that whoever drafts a paparazzi regulation
measure for Malibu “should agree to take on the [legal]
defense of it.”
