Word: avatars
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Tomorrow, two Avatar street vendors and a writer will be tried in Boston Municipal Court on charges of selling or distributing obscene literature. Next week, in Cambridge's Middlesex District Court three more vendors face the same charges and in addition, those of hawking or peddling a newspaper without a permit...
Although both charges are part of a concerted attack on Avatar, they must be considered separately. An investigation of the Cambridge permit dispute reveals a strange chronology of confused legal procedure by the City. Before Avatar began publishing last summer, City Licensing Commissioner John R. Sennott told its editors that they needed a license to sell newspapers. Avatar applied for and received a license. The next day two Harvard Square vendors were busted by the police. Avatar discovered that the Massachusetts General Laws exempt newspaper distributors from a license. Avatar returned its license, the City refunded the fee. Under...
Here, the narrative becomes confused by allegations from both sides. Apparently, early in November, Avatar vendors were told by the licensing office that their permit was good for only one issue. Therefore, it had expired. Redundantly, City Manager Joseph A. DeGuglielmo said that he was revoking the permit (which, if it was good only for one issue, had expired early last summer) for "good cause," namely he says, "because they were selling obscene literature." Whether the permit had expired or had been revoked, it appeared that Avatar no longer possessed a permit. The editors applied for a series...
Although the facts may be debated, the issues are clear enough. Cambridge officials have attempted to restrain future issues of Avatar on the basis of a lower court decision which found one past issue obscene. A decision which affects a single issue does not apply to a whole string of future issues, and in applying one decision to several issues the officials have violated Avatar's constitutional rights. The Boston decision applies only to the eleventh issue; the twelfth and thirteenth issues of Avatar have not been declared obscene by any court...
Simply because DeGuglielmo has labelled Avatar obsecene does not mean that a court would do the same. It is not DeGuglielmo's job, as an administrator, to label Avatar one thing or another; that is the court's prerogative, and when he usurps it he is acting unconstitutionally...