LOS ANGELES — A Santa Monica man is suing City Hall over what he says are violations of his constitutional rights that are preventing him from selling philosophy on the Third Street Promenade.
Stewart Lamle filed a complaint against the city of Santa Monica in U.S. District Court earlier this month claiming City Hall illegally restrained his First Amendment right to disseminate on the Third Street Promenade the Philosophy of Farook, a non-violent social and moral way of thinking he created. It’s also a game that he sells for profit.
The complaint asks the court to declare that City Hall’s street performer law is unconstitutional and the city should be prohibited from enforcing it. The complaint also requests that Lamle be granted a Santa Monica business license and street performance permit, both of which he has previously been denied. Also, Lamle wants City Hall to agree to not lease public space on the Third Street Promenade to any groups that are not protected under the First Amendment. Finally, Lamle wants $1 million in lost wages, embarrassment and emotional distress.
Over the past several years, Lamle has been slapped with numerous criminal charges for performing on the Promenade without a permit, using a table with illegal dimensions, possessing milk crates, which is against California law, and operating a business without a license.
Lamle has for years argued that City Hall is violating his constitutional rights by not allowing him to sell or showcase his game and refusing to grant him a business license. He contends that it’s his First Amendment right to express himself by playing and selling Farook, a high-level strategy game with similarities to Chinese checkers and chess.
At issue is how City Hall can regulate the public space of the Promenade without over-stepping civil liberties. Unlike the work produced by other artists, the city’s attorney’s office contends the game Lamle sells is not a “tangible art object,” which is what the street performer ordinance dictates.
“The city regulates street vending,” said City Attorney Marsha Moutrie. “(Lamle) doesn’t have the same status as artists who sell their products.”
Chief deputy city attorney Jeanette Schachtner and deputy city attorney Anthony Serritella are both working on the case. Neither were available for comment.
Lamle, who is representing himself in the case, is an inventor who holds dozens of patents, several in the field of games. Based on his experiences as a news correspondent in Vietnam during the 1970s, he said he began developing a way of thinking he called the “Philosophy of Farook.” According to this philosophy, human progress can be well served if people seek to attain goals by following certain “negotiation-oriented, non-violent, multi-step algorithms that form a new type of high-level game play.”
Lamle developed a new board game in the 1990s based on the principles of his philosophy, the “Farook Game,” which has since received an award by the High IQ Society, he said. The patent was submitted in May 1994 and was issued a year later. Lamle made his living in the past selling the Farook Game to onlookers to whom he demonstrated it on the Promenade. His lawsuit claims he was interrupted at least 200 times between 1996 and 2004, during which he accused City Hall of “falsely citing, arresting and prosecuting” him for performing Farook.
Lamle was denied a performance permit in 2002 because City Hall considers his game a personal service and not a performance. Under city laws, Lamle would have to apply for a license as a vendor.
Deputy City Attorney Linda Moxon argued that Santa Monica couldn’t issue a business license to Lamle because only a limited number of certain types of vendors — including carts, sidewalk cafes and farmers’ market retailers — are allowed to sell their items on the Promenade, she said.
Lamle lost his appeal of City Hall’s decision not to grant him a business license in March 2003.
Lamle was issued 41 misdemeanor citations and incarcerated twice. He faced 11 criminal charges including doing business without a license, and performing at a table higher than what’s legally allowed and located outside of designated performance zones. Each count carried a maximum of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
Santa Monica Superior Court Judge Bernard Kamins dropped the last of the criminal charges in August 2003 against Lamle. Kamins said he wanted to give Lamle the opportunity to take his civil case against City Hall to a higher court and the pending criminal charges were prohibiting Lamle from doing so.
Deputy City Attorney David Fairweather said City Hall agreed to drop the charges, but only on the condition that Lamle not return to the Promenade to sell his game.
In his ruling, Kamins indicated that denying Lamle a business license may have been unfair. He also ordered Lamle’s games and the table on which he sells them, which were confiscated more than a year ago, to be returned.
Lamle said it has taken him a while to prepare his civil case against City Hall, in part due to litigation he has been embroiled in with Mattel, Inc., the international toy company.
Mattel allegedly agreed to a contract that would help Lamle produce and distribute the Farook Game world-wide. Mattel backed out of the deal and claimed the contract was never binding. Lamle spent years going head-to-head with the toy giant.
Lamle, who also represented himself in that legal battle, said he still has the 52 boxes filled with paperwork used to help make his case. Seeking $28 million in damages, he settled out of court with Mattel in April.
He would not specify how much he received. “It’s a bundle,” Lamle said. “Let’s just say it’s very nice to have Mattel’s money.”
While he was being interviewed by the Daily Press, Lamle was in New York and soon heading to China on business, he said.
Freed up from the Mattel case, Lamle said he has time to focus his energies against City Hall’s street performance law.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 26, 2005. Read the original PDF.