A reader submitted a Comment on the “How To Submit A FOIL Request” article, where he mentioned he was looking to, or had submitted FOIL requests for, permits issued for marches made for Black Lives Matter and the Back The Beacon PD rally.

We checked with Council Member Dan Aymar-Blair, who studies protesting and knows the rules and guidelines very well, had this to say about if permits are needed: "Permits are required for marches and rallies in Beacon's public spaces; however, the spirit of our permitting process is for the city to facilitate protest, for example providing police protection from counter-protests. While mobilizing police and other city resources for a peaceful assembly costs money, it is a cost we must live with to ensure the safe practice of our constitutionally protected freedoms.

"Free assembly is a human right, not a state-sanctioned privilege.​ That's why I'd rather we do away with the permitting process in most cases, and allow prior notification to be at the discretion of protest organizers."

We followed up with an organizer with Beacon4Black Lives, Justice McCray, to see if that organization has asked for or been granted permits for the approximately 9 protests marches they held. This was his response:

“We do not get permits for any of our protests. City Council member Dan Aymar-Blair stated in a council meeting on 8/3/2020, in response to Theresa Kraft's complaint about the protests during the Public Comment portion of the call, that our protests don't need permits.

”Usually (now Acting Chief, formerly Lieutenant) Frost or Lieutenant Figlia will contact me for details of our protest if I don't contact them. We're looking into training citizen marshals to help lead the protests and temporarily close off streets as we march. We don't ask the police to close the streets down and we'll gladly protest without them.”