Most of you probably already have heard about the new federal lawsuit challenging the city of Savannah’s licensing procedures for tour guides.
The four tour guides and would-be guides who have filed the suit are being supported by the Institute for Justice, a libertarian nonprofit law firm that has litigated major cases involving issues such as school vouchers, eminent domain and interstate wine sales.
The Institute for Justice has been involved with similar suits against tour guide licensing procedures in other cities. The core of its argument is that the bureaucratic requirements amount to an unconstitutional restriction on freedom of speech.
In early June of this year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the city of New Orleans could continue to require every tour guide to pass a criminal background check, a drug test and a written test.
“New Orleans, by requiring the licensees to know the city and not be felons or drug addicts,” concluded the court in a brief opinion, “has effectively promoted the government interests, and without those protections for the city and its visitors, the government interest would be unserved.”
To my mind, the opinion raises more questions than it answers. What does it mean “to know the city” of New Orleans? Don’t we all know lots of people who “know” Savannah in interesting ways and could give quality tours without having to battle city bureaucracy to obtain a license?
A few weeks after the New Orleans opinion was published, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected similar requirements for tour guides in Washington, D.C.
In a lengthy and entertaining opinion, the court dismissed a variety of arguments made by the District’s lawyers.
“The District failed to present any evidence the problems it sought to thwart actually exist,” concluded the court. “Even assuming those harms are real, there is no evidence the exam requirement is an appropriately tailored antidote.”
Given the conflicting rulings by the appellate courts, the Institute for Justice is calling on the Supreme Court to decide the fate of the licensing requirements in Savannah and in a handful of other cities. (The D.C. opinion implies that most American cities have no such requirements for tour guides.)
It has been interesting to hear the local reaction to the suit.
I’ve seen a considerable number of online commenters, even some who generally argue for smaller government, support the test and other city-mandated hurdles. Underlying many of those comments is the assumption that the test will protect consumers and lead to better tours.
Of course, both the appellate court rulings have emphasized that, once licensed, tour guides have the right to say anything they want to their clients.
Just for kicks, I took the sample tour guide test on the city of Savannah’s website. I got the correct answer on 16 of the 20 sample multiple choice questions. That’s a score of 80 percent, which would be just high enough to pass the full test.
I bet there are hundreds of readers of this column who would do better than I did.
Of the 20 sample questions online, three deal with Native American history and two with African American history. Nine of the questions are related to General Oglethorpe, the city plan or basic local geography.
I missed a couple of questions that I should have gotten right, but I’ll confess that I had absolutely no idea that the “advent of the boll weevil” was “Savannah’s greatest commercial disaster in the second decade of the 20th century.”
Does the tour guide test with its $100 fee serve a legitimate government purpose? What about the other requirements?
For whatever it’s worth, I’ve developed a healthy respect over the years for Savannah’s community of tour guides.
Successful guides not only have to be knowledgeable and entertaining, they also have to project friendliness and approachability even when they’re having bad days. Sure, lots of other jobs require friendliness, but few require the sustained pleasantness demanded of tour guides.
How accurate are the guides when they’re detailing the city’s documented history? I’d say they are very accurate, but public comments in recent months have been filled with anecdotes of glaring errors. Those individual examples are sometimes used to suggest widespread negligence.
But it’s worth keeping in mind that even diligent tour guides might make errors and that all the current guides passed the required test.
As the federal lawsuit moves forward, we should also consider the broader tension between the rights of citizens and the legitimate interests of a city government. In that respect, the issue of tour guide licensing is related to other important issues, like the city of Savannah’s assumption that it has the right to ban 18- to 20-year olds from restaurants that serve alcohol.
It will certainly be interesting to see how Savannah officials respond to the new lawsuit. If the issue is picked up by the Supreme Court, it will be especially interesting to hear from Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, a native Savannahian.
City Talk appears every Tuesday and Sunday. Bill Dawers can be reached via billdawers@comcast.net. Send mail to 10 E.32nd St., Savannah, Ga. 31401.