When I was in college during the hoary days of the Reagan administration, we regularly picked the post office on Saturday afternoons to protest war and mayhem in Central America. The city tried numerous times to make us pay a ridiculous fee to get a permit, but those demos were seldom more than about a dozen people. We just said no, we'll see you in court and went on about our business. Even the day we decided to have a march over and picket the college football game (hard-core, don't you think?), no one hassled us.
I just recently deleted an item about the Tacoma WA Leonard Peltier support group being denied a permit for a march in the streets last Saturday. The city wanted them to post a ridiculous bond and to pay for all the police time involved and of course the organizers couldn' do that. The city also wanted them, as a condition of their permit to inform everyone who might be attending in writing of all laws they bmight be breaking, but the city could not give a list of what laws people were supposed to be informed about. That would not be a huge march, and the organizers decided just to avoid confrontation and stay on the sidewalk which would be allowed without any problem.
(This item offered without comment on the point of having this protest.) In Seattle, it has become customary to have some kind of event on N30, the anniversary of the biggest blockades during WTO.
For N30 2000 a permit was applied for and the city turned it down. So between 2000 and 5000 people, mostly local said SCREW YOU and assembled peacefully during rush hour at the "Park" (Is it really a "park" if it is a commercial center covered in concrete?) where the permit had been requested. Lots of cops showed up WITH NO RIOT GEAR and stood around containing the assemly so that at a certain point if you left you would not be allowed back. There were speakers, mostly inaudible about like the teacher voices in a Charlie Brown special. There were a few signs and I think a reprise of certain WTO visuals (shirtless women in Nov for instance.)
That event was WONDERFUL but it ended badly. A lot of people stayed in the park drumming and singing until about 8 at night when they were supposed to go over to a gathering a few blocks away. As the big event broke up, cops in street uniforms were replaced by cops in riot gear. Some of the group, about 100 people including a few who I think were just drunk or something had a confrontation with cops on the way to the gathering. That resulted in like 100 arrests, some tear gras, and a cop suffering a pretty serious eye injury from having something thrown at him. It also resulted in the city temporarily closing several bus stops near the area of the confrontation. I had to catch a bus after running an errand and couldn't see what happened.
For N30 2001, a permit was applied for and denied citing prior commitment to the sponsors of an annual carousel and fundraiser in the same park. The city was sued in federal court and lost, so the event went on smoothly. For N30 2002 I think the permit was just issued and there may even have been an anti-war march too. I confess I did not feel morally obliged to go since it was legal and there were plenty of people. But persistence pays.
DoreneC