In New York's Times Square, it is very common to see people clad in popular character costumes. Some of these costumes would include children's favorites such as Elmo, Cookie Monster, and other characters from Sesame Street. Others would wear superhero costumes such as Spiderman, Superman and Catwoman. They would gladly pose with tourists and have their pictures taken.
However, several incidents have been cited wherein some of these characters had misbehaved and harassed tourists. One incident also involved a character causing harm to a police officer.
In an incident that happened the previous year, a Cookie Monster was reported to have shoved a two-year-old while an Elmo berated the tourists with his anti-Semitic remarks.
There were also reports about the brawl involving two identically clad impersonators of the Statue of Liberty while a man wearing a Woody costume from the movie "Toy Story" was reported to have groped on women.
The latest incident occurred when a Spider-man costume wearer had a dispute with a woman who gave him a $1 tip. It turns out that he only accepts tips in $5, $10, and $20 denominations. When a police officer intervened to settle the dispute, the man punched the police officer. He was later identified as Junior Bishop and had been charged with second-degree police assault, resisting arrest, criminal misconduct, and criminal mischief. So far, he is the third "misbehaving" Spider-Man that was arrested this year in the city of New York.
Mayor Bill de Blasio believes that it's about time these costume-wearing people are regulated and subjected to the city ordinance. "This has gone too far. It's time to take some real steps to regulate this reality."
However, some legal experts say that proposals to draft a city law that would require licenses to regulate the character's street activities could violate his rights to free speech. One point to consider is whether the characters can be classified as street performers which is protected by the First Amendment or as commercial performers which needs regulation.
"If you can prove that they are there to seek money, not simply conveying a message, they are subject to greater regulation," said Professor of constitutional law Jesse Choper from the University of California.
Another professor, Jonathan Turley, who hails from George Washington University's Constitutional Law department, expressed that any regulations should be written with utmost care in order to avoid enforcing them arbitrarily. If it focus solely on those who wear costumes, it may bring in some problems.
"When politicians call for regulating someone in a costume, it's clearly inane. You have people on Wall Street who violate the law, and we don't subject people in Armani suits to special regulations," said Turley.
