'Lawfare' comes to the Chestertown Tea Party Festival

An eleventh hour Chestertown Tea Party Festival Committee (CTPF) ruling reneged on permitting any political parties to participate as vendors in 2024’s 250th celebration. To wit:

February 2024: Republicans of Kent (RoK) applied and paid for a booth at CTPF. Confirmation of registration and payment received by email February 18.

May 3: Three weeks before CTPF, RoK received CTPF email stating “due to a number of complaints from last year’s event, our board voted to not allow political parties to participate as vendors at the Chestertown Tea Party Festival.”

May 7: RoK emailed for reconsideration asking:

Was a formal complaint filed?

Why didn’t CTPF follow-up last year?

Why was RoK not notified of the complaint earlier?

Why was the decision made 3 weeks before CTPF?

May 10: CTPF replied, ‘soon after last year’s festival’ the board decided tono longer assign booths to political parties “due to the fact they attracted persons who displayed profanity and such displays were offensive and disruptive.”

So, because someone unassociated with RoK at all, chose to carry an obscene sign last May and happened to stop by the RoK booth, both political parties have been banned from the festivities? RoK members vaguely remember the incident. But, even if he told a joke generating laughter, he was not a RoK participant. So how is RoK at fault?

The application gave no indication that RoK was responsible to police random visitors. Are all vendors who were visited by this person being tossed? The standing municipal answer to disorderly conduct in public spaces, articulated in CTPF’s letter: “If local law enforcement is aware persons are displaying profanity, they are barred from festival area.” Even the First Amendment has limitations, although the ‘sign-carrier’ could argue right to ‘free speech’. The RoK understands the CTPF’s concern regarding the presence of families with children at the event.

This decision is wrong, especially with this year’s Tea Party celebrating our forefathers’ opposition to overbearing government. The re-enactment each year on High Street shows public debate in action as its centerpiece. Wonder if unsavory language was used by some back then? Sadly, 250 years later the fundamentals of the Constitution, for which the colonists gave their lives, are again under assault.

Gerald H. Docksteader

Board Member, Republicans of Kent

Founded 2009 – 236 Current Members

Chestertown