CHAPIN, S.C. (WIS) – Chapin Town Council passed a revised ordinance concerning protesting and picketing at its Tuesday meeting. <\/p>\n
The new ordinance was passed on a unanimous vote. <\/p>\n
The first reading of the ordinance<\/a> took place earlier this month, where it passed just a couple months after the town was sued by a resident saying they violated his First Amendment rights. <\/p>\n Under the old ordinance<\/a>, any resident was required to have a permit to hold signs on main roads, picket or protest. People were required to submit their permit no later than two weeks before the event, detailing when and where it would be and the event could only be 30 minutes. <\/p>\n The mayor was also able to deny any permit at his discretion.<\/p>\n Chapin resident Ernest Giradino sued the town on July 15<\/a>, saying that the ordinance infringed upon his right to freedom of speech. Giradino described himself in the lawsuit as an evangelical Christian who wanted to spread his message on large signs sporadically within Chapin town limits. <\/p>\n With the new ordinance groups \u201cof not more than 2 individuals on a sidewalk or on the grounds of a Town-controlled park or plaza, or in other Town-owned areas or rights-of-way normally used or reserved for pedestrian movement.\u201d<\/p>\n Chapin Mayor Al Koon stressed to WIS when the ordinance passed its first reading that the revisions were not because of the lawsuit, but something that the council had been considering for a long time. <\/p>\n \u201cAs mayor of the town, my job is to keep people safe, and that includes the person or persons who may be out expressing their First Amendment,\u201d said Koon. \u201cReally, the big difference is not requiring any sort of permit or approval to go out and express your First Amendment.\u201d<\/p>\n Feel more informed, prepared, and connected with WIS. For more free content like this, subscribe to our email newsletter<\/a>, and download our apps<\/a>. Have feedback that can help us improve? Click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n WATCH US LIVE<\/p>\n Watch WIS live during newscasts and Soda City Living in the livestream player below. When WIS is not on the air, the player will feature Gray Media\u2019s Local News Live.<\/p>\n Copyright 2025 WIS. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHAPIN, S.C. (WIS) – Chapin Town Council passed a revised ordinance concerning protesting and picketing at its Tuesday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[19093,19094,19096,2676,296,19092,139,2696,19095,4525,128,130,129],"class_list":{"0":"post-30005","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-chapin","9":"tag-chapin-town-council","10":"tag-first-amendment","11":"tag-lawsuit","12":"tag-local","13":"tag-midlands","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-ordinance","16":"tag-picket","17":"tag-protest","18":"tag-reading-city","19":"tag-reading-city-headlines","20":"tag-reading-city-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}