http://www.whittierdailynews.com/news/ci_4322363

Governor signs bill protecting free papers
From staff and wire reports

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation Monday making it an infraction to take more than 25 copies of a free newspaper to recycle it or prevent people from reading it.

The measure, by Assembly Minority Leader George Plescia, R-La Jolla, is a response to several incidents, such as one at Pasadena City College in mid-May, in which large numbers of free papers were taken from news boxes to be sold for recycling or to keep others from reading them.

Nearly 5,000 copies of the PCC Courier were stolen from news racks just after they were distributed. Students identifying themselves as members of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, or MEChA, claimed it was in retaliation for a lack of coverage in the campus weekly.

Indeed, incidents of theft or destruction of free newspapers has been on the rise, according to the Student Press Law Center.

In one case, the entire press run of the Chula Vista Star was taken from the racks on three different occasions and sold to recyclers in Mexico.

Authorities said they were powerless to prosecute because the newspapers were free and had no fair market value.

In another instance, thousands of copies of the Epoch Times began disappearing in the San Gabriel Valley after the Chinese-language paper began publishing articles on human rights violations and other issues in China.

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates was fined $100 for trashing hundreds of copies of the Daily Californian in 2002 after the UC Berkeley student newspaper endorsed his opponent.

A spokesman for Plescia, Morgan Crinklaw, said the assemblyman's bill makes it easier to prosecute similar cases.

"It's not as ambiguous as before," he said.

The bill would make it an infraction punishable by a fine of up to $250 to take more than 25 copies of a free newspaper to sell or barter the papers, recycle them for cash or another type of compensation, hurt a competitor or prevent others from reading the paper.

A subsequent offense could be prosecuted as a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $500, sentencing of up to 10 days in the county jail or both.