The Minneapolis City Council voted 11-2 on Friday to offer permits during the Republican National Convention for protest groups of 50 or more who want to block pedestrian traffic on sidewalks or in crosswalks. The permits won’t be required, but any group that obtains one will have priority to protest at a particular place and be able to call on police to remove other groups from the area. The city hasn’t previously granted such priority or given permission for protests that interrupt ordinary foot traffic. Proponents said the new permits will let police settle territory disputes between rival protest groups, a scenario that opponents say hasn’t happened before and could be handled under existing city rules.


Two successful amendments altered the ordinance as proposed by council members Paul Ostrow and Ralph Remington. Instead of becoming permanent, the permit policy will be in effect only from Aug. 25 to Sept. 8, covering the time of the Republican National Convention — when demonstrations are expected in Minneapolis and Bloomington as well as the host city of St. Paul. Also, proposed police procedures are no longer part of the ordinance; instead, they were referred back to the council’s Public Safety and Regulatory Services Committee.

The council action came three days after a press conference at which council members Cam Gordon and Gary Schiff — joined by representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union-Minnesota, Women Against Military Madness and ACORN — decried the proposed ordinance as unnecessary regulation of free speech. That miffed co-author Remington, who griped during Thursday’s Committee of the Whole meeting about how the issue had been discussed but nevertheless voted for removing the police procedure language from the ordinance on Friday. Critics Schiff and Gordon voted for the amendments that passed but against the new permit policy, even as amended. Gordon aide Robin Garwood told the Minnesota Independent that those opposed to instating the new permit found a measure of victory in the more limited ordinance language the City Council approved.