Community upset over Lions Club member's arrest

Local Lions Club member Miles Lambert just wanted to hand out club mints and ask for donations on Nov. 27, but he ended up in handcuffs.

His alleged crime? Lambert was doing all this outside the Lake Placid Post Office, which has a no solicitation policy.

On Tuesday, Lambert, 70, pleaded not guilty to the charge of trespassing after warning, a first-degree misdemeanor.

"I don't see how I can trespass when I rent a post office box there," he said, adding that the box has been at his disposal for more than 50 years.

Lambert said he rejected an offer to pay a $100 fine and court costs and stay off the post office property for one year. Instead, he's continuing on with the case and is now looking to hire an attorney.

If convicted, Lambert could face 60 days in the county jail.

Despite the U.S. Post Office's stated rules and regulations that strictly prohibit any solicitation, Lambert maintains he was within his right to try and raise money for the Lions Club since the building is public property.

"It's owned by the taxpayers," he said Thursday.

Unhappy residents

Fellow Lake Placid resident Leroy Russell does not know Lambert personally, but called him on Wednesday to talk about his arrest after hearing about it through area media outlets.

Lambert told him the Lions Club takes the money it raises and uses it to supply seeing-eye dogs for the blind and get glasses for underprivileged kids, according to Russell.

Russell called Lambert's arrest "ridiculous" and said "rules are made to be bent a little bit."

"He wasn't interfering with business. If he would have been, now that's a whole different story," Russell said. "There's rules we all have to live by, but even a police officer will bend the rules a little bit, (like) give a warning instead of a ticket.

"To me, it's just an overkill."

The incident in question

Court records state that post office supervisor Stewart Roberts first asked Lambert to leave after informing him of the no solicitation policy.

"This is a public building and you will have to cuff me in order to make me leave," Lambert was quoted as saying in the arrest report.

Lake Placid Police Officer Eddie San Miguel was dispatched to the post office and found Lambert standing there with an apron on that displayed the local Lions Club logo and holding a large tin can with money in it, and the mints, the report stated.

"You must be here for me," San Miguel wrote in his report regarding Lambert's response. "I'm going to tell you like I told them (expletives) inside. This is a public place and I have the right to collect donations or sell mints whichever way you want to look at it. The only way I'm leaving here is in cuffs."

San Miguel spoke to Roberts, who explained the post office's policy of no solicitation and showed the officer documentation verifying that regulation.

The officer then told Lambert to leave, which he again refused to do, the report stated. At that point, Lions Club president Jerald Higginbothan was called to try and get Lambert to change his mind, but with no success.

"The vice president (Dean Hess), or second in command for the Lions Club, stated he did not agree with Lambert's actions," San Miguel wrote in the report.

Lambert was finally arrested and taken to the Lake Placid Police Department for processing.

When contacted Thursday for a comment, representatives at the Lake Placid Post Office said they had been advised not to discuss the incident.

First Amendment violation?

The U.S. Supreme Court heard a very similar case in 1990 - United States vs. Kokinda - where members of a political advocacy group challenged their conviction for setting up a table on a sidewalk near a post office to solicit contributions and sell subscriptions to the organization's newspaper.

A district court affirmed the convictions and rejected the argument that the First Amendment was violated, holding that the postal sidewalk was not a public forum. The court of appeals reversed this decision, only to see the Supreme Court reverse it yet again.

In her opinion, then-Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote that, "Speech activity on governmental property that has been traditionally open to the public for expressive activity or has been expressly dedicated by the government to speech activity is subject to strict scrutiny.

"However, where the property is not a traditional public forum and the government has not dedicated its property to First Amendment activity, such regulation is examined only for reasonableness."

Lake Placid resident William Sueppel probably would not agree with that decision.

In a letter to the editor published in Tuesday's Highlands Today, Sueppel said he supported Lambert's "bull-headed stance" against what he refers to as an "out of control government."

On Friday, Sueppel saw Lambert's arrest as another example of the government abusing people during times of economic hardship.

"My opinion is we are far too much regulated as it is," Sueppel said.