New Hampshire donut censorship and the ‘language police’: Local bakery sues over ruling that student-painted murals are promoting, not art

Conway residents passed the ordinance in Tuesday’s municipal election by a vote of 1,277 to 423. This was a part of a lengthy vote on budget and spending items and the election of presidency positions corresponding to electoral officer, treasurer and police commissioner.

The vote got here greater than a 12 months after the owner of Leavitt’s Country Bakery sued the town above a painting by highschool students that hangs outside his store of the sun shining over a mountain range made up of sprinkle-covered chocolate and strawberry donuts, a blueberry muffin, a cinnamon roll and other pastries.

The planning committee decided that the painting was less art and more promoting and that it couldn’t remain because it is because of its size. At about 90 square feet (8.6 square meters), it’s 4 times larger than the town’s sign code allows.

The latest regulation requires applicants to satisfy criteria for art on public and business property. It says that while zoning and planning committees must approve the appropriateness of theme, location and design before the choice committee considers each proposal, the method should allow “no interference with the artistic expression or content of the work.”

“There is no part of the letter where we seek to restrict any kind of speech,” Planning Board Chairman Benjamin Colbath said at a March 28 meeting. “We tried to write this carefully and certainly took inspiration from what a lot of other communities are doing and also got confirmation from our advisors on this point.”

An attorney for the bakery had urged voters to reject the ordinance.

“Usually people can decide whether to speak or not; “You don’t have to ask the government to say ‘very please’ first,” Robert Frommer wrote within the Conway Daily Sun last week.

“All commercial property owners would be required to obtain a permit before placing public art of any kind in the city,” Frommer wrote, and city officials “may reject murals based on their depiction or the person installing them.”

Sean Young, the bakery owner, said he voted NO: “Local officials are not allowed to play art critics.”

Young sued after city officials told him the painting could stay if it depicted actual mountains — somewhat than pastries that suggested mountains — or if the constructing was not a bakery.

Young’s lawsuit was placed on hold last 12 months as residents considered revising the best way the town defines signs in order that the sign would have remained in place. However, this measure was considered too comprehensive and sophisticated and failed.

The mural will remain in place for now as his case goes to trial in November.

Frommer told The Associated Press in an email that the town has not said whether the brand new ordinance would affect Leavitt’s mural, “and if Sean desired to paint one other mural with the highschool students at one in every of his stores , he would must step in through the unconstitutional framework of the regulation.”

The city attorney didn’t immediately reply to an emailed request for comment Wednesday.

When Colbath discussed the ordinance eventually month’s meeting, he presented it as a approach to allow for more public art in the town.

“There was a gap in our ordinance and I wanted to try to clarify that and find an easier path for community art,” he said.