Miami commissioners took the first step late Thursday to repeal a stringent ordinance limiting what items protesters can bring to demonstrations.
The ordinance, passed just a week before November’s Free Trade of the Americas talks in Miami, had been touted by police as a way to protect the public against violent protests.
But Thursday night, even commissioners admitted the ordinance had one intention.
”We would be kidding ourselves if we said that without the [Free Trade Area of the Americas] this law would have been passed,” said Commissioner Tomás Regalado, who wants his own ordinance repealed. It will take a second approval vote on March 11 for the ordinance to be rescinded, reported the Miami Herald.
The law allows police to arrest demonstrators who carry glass bottles, water balloons, water guns, signs held up by wood sticks and five-gallon plastic buckets.