Photo by Dan Scott/sevencardan

Vermont, always a state on the cutting edge, just came up with a new way to to restrict the legal right of photographers to shoot in public.

Due to complaints from business owners, photographer Dan Scott was issued a one-year trespass order barring him from shooting 67 businesses in the popular Burlington open air mall Church Street Marketplace. If he disobeys that order he can be arrested.

Seven Days reports that Scott has been shooting locals in the mall for over a year and “all his photos are taken on public property, not inside stores or through the windows or blinds of private homes.” In January, Scott was approached at another mall, the Burlington Town Center, by a security guard who told him he wasn’t allowed to take photos there. He was questioned by Burlington police, and then the next day a cop came to his office to question him for 45 minutes. (Crime is pretty low in Burlington.) The photographer seemed mostly interested in finding out whether Scott takes photos of children and posts them on the internet.

The next month, Brown was taking photos outside Uncommon Grounds coffeehouse on Church Street when an employee asked him not to take her photo and to delete any already on his camera, which he didn’t do. A few days later he got a visit at work from another Burlington cop, this one bearing that trespass order. (That sounds like “uncommon grounds” for a trespass order!)

The manager of the coffeehouse, Mara Bethel, paints a different picture of Scott, claiming he’s been a problem, surreptitiously targeting women and creeping them out. She called his behavior “unsettling” and “aggressive” when confronted. 

The Burlington PD never arrested Scott and actually don’t even have control over the trespass order – they’re issued at the request of property owners. So that means, any business that doesn’t like you hanging around can actually legally order you not to? Even if you’re doing something perfectly legal?

As local Saint Michael’s College journalism professor Dave Mindich put it, “Church Street is, by definition, the most public place in Chittenden County, if not Vermont,” he says. “There’s no presumption of privacy. There’s no gray area here.”

Article from Seven Days vis Carlos Miller