The Silver Spring Penguin

Downtown Silver Spring security guards grilled one guy for distributing campaign lit on Ellsworth Drive but ultimately didn’t stop him from doing so, according to both sides of the equation.

During Monday night’s meeting of the citizens advisory board, an attorney repping the shopping center’s management company said security guards were in the lurch on shutterbug Chip Py’s First Amendment right to hand out political fliers on Ellsworth Drive. According to lawyer Jack Garson, the guards had not been thoroughly trained on the shopping center’s policies.

“We dropped the ball,” Garson admitted. “Hopefully, we won’t ever have a problem again.”

However, despite Py’s run-in Friday evening with one security guard, one supervisor and one property manager, the Silver Spring resident was told he could continue to hand out fliers on Ellsworth Drive, Garson told the board.

In a phone interview with The Penguin late Monday night, Py admitted that a property manager told him he could resume his activities. But Py said he was pissed at having to go through a guard, supervisor and property manager before being allowed to keep on keepin’ on.

And instead of hitting Ellsworth Drive with more fliers after the exchange, Py headed home to holler at county council member Marc Elrich and the American Civil Liberties Union, he said.

As far as the ACLU goes, Py told the advisory board that he wouldn’t comment on whether he and the organization would file a lawsuit against Downtown Silver Spring’s management company. But he did say “a third party that we all know” would continue to test the shopping center’s free-speech policies.

This wasn’t Py’s first run-in with security guards on Ellsworth Drive. Last summer, guards told Py he couldn’t snap pictures in the shopping center. The ensuing flap and Fourth of July protest prompted the county attorney to declare Ellsworth Drive a “public forum” where unfettered speech, assembly and photography were protected by the First Amendment.

Diane Schwartz Jones, assistant chief administrative officer for MoCo exec Ike Leggett, wasn’t digging the most recent incident.

“We’re very dismayed by the event,” Schwartz Jones told Garson and the advisory board. “We will not tolerate any action that has a chilling effect on First Amendment rights.”

Garson said security guards would be briefed monthly on the shopping center’s free-speech policies to prevent future run-ins.

Photo: Jack Garson, legal representative for Downtown Silver Spring, offers a “mea culpa” to the citizens advisory board. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.