To the Editor:

A couple of weeks ago I drove up to the fire department boot drive on Wasserman Way at Trades Lane. A fire truck was parked in the turn lane and firemen were standing nearby holding boots to collect donations from motorists stopped at the traffic light. I’d seen the fire department raise money for itself this way before, but I couldn’t remember ever seeing a member of Newtown Forest Association standing in the middle of the road with a bird’s nest in his hand or a diver from Newtown Underwater Rescue holding a flipper. It appears only the fire department enjoys special access to the middle of a public road to collect money.

That’s because state statute CGS 14-300h exempts only fire departments from violating traffic laws so they can “collect” donations in a public road. But what the statute actually permits the fire department to do is solicit, much like the Santa who rings a bell at a store entrance solicits donations for the Salvation Army. By obtrusively drawing attention to themselves and their cause they are asking for money, not merely collecting it. In fact, “solicit” comes from the French meaning to disquiet, to make anxious. The conspicuous presence of the firemen and the large gleaming fire truck in the middle of the road is the clanging of the bell, the clarion call, imploring you by their incongruous and unsettling nearness to make a donation. They don’t have to say a word.

But why have fire departments been singled out for this privilege? Aren’t there other worthy non-profits deserving of the same consideration? If the legislature wants to help fire departments provide a vital public service by exempting them from traffic laws, why limit that exemption to fire departments? Newtown Underwater Rescue, Newtown Forest Association and other non-profit organizations serve vital public purposes too. Why not exempt all-nonprofits?

And this is the problem with the statute. It discriminates against every other organization that serves just as important a public interest as the fire department, depriving them of the same right to solicit money and, because soliciting is a type of speech, also denying them the same opportunity to speak in the middle of a public road.

I would rather not see representatives of any non-profit organization stand in a public road to solicit donations, but if the legislature sees fit to exempt one non-profit from the motor vehicle code, then it should exempt every non-profit. All or none is only fair, and rational. When the state exempts one organization from its laws and not others that are just as beneficial it is favoring one group over the others, violating the principle that laws are to be applied even-handedly, and in this case, also depriving those organizations it does not exempt of the right to speak. I don’t think a court would find the statute constitutional. Boots, birds’ nests, and flippers are all equal in the eyes of the law.

Glen Swanson

Sandy Hook