Dude. Read the website. It isn't a for-profit corporation; it isn't contracted operation of the greenspace like a NPS Vendor. It is a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Foundation, established as a City-Private partnership to create and maintain this greenspace next to the Convention Center, where prior to 2008 there was only concrete. It is 100% dedicated to the general public good. Generous donors established an endowment so the city doesn't need to maintain the space; the city bought and donated some of the land. It was a $125MM investment of private gift and public funds. The Mission of the Foundation expresses a desire to make the space useful and available to the largest number of people - which sometimes means there are restrictions placed on small numbers of specific people and specific uses. Fees help support the greenspace. You were doing something they've decided to charge for. You weren't doing something they've decided not to charge for.
They probably shouldn't have asked you for a fee because you were acting as a private person, doing private work. But you
looked like a commercial photographer and your subjects
looked like paying clients.
They have the right to make and enforce reasonable rules.
You used
their space to make your photographs. They charge a fee to people who want to make
formal photographs, just like they charge a fee to have a gathering. Sure, it's a gray area and you don't want to be restricted nor pay the fee, but you qualify to be regulated according to the rules.
Originally posted by MadMathMind Asking some lawyers who know better, but this is not necessarily true because the use of private companies to circumvent restrictions on their authority is definitely not within their power. Example: the city delegates maintenance and operation to the land in front of city hall--which they still own--to a private company so that the private company can make rules that say "No protesting here" in effort to suppress political speech. The city can't say "Oh, no, private company runs our building, so they can make the rules."
They can make some rules but there are limits. The use of a permit to assemble, for instance, is permissible but it cannot be an approval process. The permit must be granted without delay unless the government can show that the demonstration includes, by its nature, inherently disruptive elements such as blocking of streets. Furthermore, the disruption has to be come from the assembly
itself, not the people around it. Example: suppose some hate group decides to hold an assembly in the park where they just stand there doing absolutely nothing but holding up signs. Others will obviously come and throw things, riot, etc. The police are under obligation to protect the demonstrators, not say "People dislike you so you need to leave."
That was this case:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminiello_v._City_of_Chicago