CHICAGO (CN) — The Windy City Wednesday approved a new ordinance targeting “intimidating” flyers, three months after antisemitic signs, some attacking the Anti-Defamation League, were found in the city’s Lincoln Park neighborhood.
Lincoln Park alderman Timmy Knudsen said during Wednesday’s city council meeting that he hoped the “Stop Hate Litter” ordinance would deter hate crime incidents by white supremacists. He attributed the flyers his constituents brought to him in April — at least one of which was tied in a plastic bag with brown pellets that Knudsen said resembled rat poison — to a white supremacist group based out of Florida.
Knudsen declined to name the group at the meeting, though Chicago Sun-Times reporting in April linked the flyers to the Goyim Defense League, a loose neo-Nazi group.
The same group has distributed antisemitic flyers in other cities like Colleyville, Texas, and Nashville, Tennessee. Knudsen blamed a lack of law enforcement response to their activities in Chicago on ineffective legislation. He said relying on flyers to spread their message keeps the group “one hair within the law.”
“Our local law enforcement informed us that under the current law, there was nothing that they could do,” the alderman said in reference to the flyers. “They couldn’t give the group a warning, they definitely couldn’t write a ticket. No justice and no reason for this hate group to not return to all of our wards.”
The new ordinance, as approved Wednesday, penalizes materials left on private or personal property that “without the property owner’s consent, knowingly subject[s], or having ground to know that they may subject, another person or group of people to intimidation or defamation, threats of physical injury, violence, or a hate crime, or in reasonable apprehension thereof such that would cause alarm in others, disturb the peace, or provoke violence.”
Those found violating the law will face fines between $500 and $1,000 per offense. Law enforcement will also note if the flyers accompany a hate incident for city records.
Despite the stated attempt to deter white supremacist hate, some on the left have voiced concern over the ordinance. They worry that as the Democratic National Convention looms, it will be used to target pro-Palestine protesters critical of the Anti-Defamation League, Israel and the Biden administration’s continued support for its siege on Gaza, despite the international case claiming that the siege constitutes genocide. Forty such protesters are currently facing misdemeanor charges from the city, stemming from a road blockage protest outside O’Hare Airport in April.
Further protests by Palestinian advocacy groups — alongside other LGBTQ and anti-imperialist groups — are anticipated both before and at the convention.
“This is a classic case of not thinking about — or not caring about — unintended consequences,” the progressive Chicago watchdog group People’s Fabric said of the ordinance in a post on X.
“This is so loosely written, it’d be very easy for people claim ‘Free Gaza’ or ‘Stop the genocide’ flyers left on cars or posted on light poles are ‘threatening’ or ‘intimidating.’ The ADL is *already* counting things like that as ‘hate crimes,’ that isn’t even a hypothetical,” the group said in a separate post.
Knudsen seemingly acknowledged these concerns in city hall Wednesday, saying the ordinance is “narrowly tailored” and would not target active protesters.
“It applies to materials left on your real or personal property — a car or a doorstep. It is not targeting someone who has a megaphone in the public way,” the alderman said.
The ADL Midwest office thanked Knudsen Wednesday in a public statement, saying that it had received at least 18 reports of “extremist propaganda literature” distributed in Chicago this year.
“The Stop Hate Littering Ordinance directly addresses this dangerous problem. It will help deter and hold accountable the perpetrators of hate who target marginalized community members,” ADL Midwest said in its statement.
In April the Anti-Defamation League reported a 74% increase in antisemitic incidents in Illinois between 2022 and 2023; over a third of the 8,873 nationwide incidents the group tallied in 2023 related to anti-Zionism or included reference to Israel.