International Soc. for Krishna Consciousness, Inc. v. Lee, 505 U.S. 672, 19 (1992)

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690

INTERNATIONAL SOC. FOR KRISHNA CONSCIOUSNESS, INC. v. LEE

Opinion of O'Connor, J.

leading solicitation practices"); 452 U. S., at 665 (Blackmun, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (upholding partial restriction on solicitation because of the "crowd control problems" it creates). The record in this case confirms that the problems of congestion and fraud that we have identified with solicitation in other contexts have also proved true in the airports' experience. See App. 67-111 (affidavits). Because airport users are frequently facing time constraints, and are traveling with luggage or children, the ban on solicitation is a reasonable means of avoiding disruption of an airport's operation.

In my view, however, the regulation banning leafletting— or, in the Port Authority's words, the "continuous or repetitive . . . distribution of . . . printed or written material"— cannot be upheld as reasonable on this record. I therefore concur in the judgment in No. 91-339, post, p. 830, striking down that prohibition. While the difficulties posed by solicitation in a nonpublic forum are sufficiently obvious that its regulation may "rin[g] of common-sense," Kokinda, 497 U. S., at 734 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted), the same is not necessarily true of leafletting. To the contrary, we have expressly noted that leafletting does not entail the same kinds of problems presented by face-to-face solicitation. Specifically, "[o]ne need not ponder the contents of a leaflet or pamphlet in order mechanically to take it out of someone's hand . . . . 'The distribution of literature does not require that the recipient stop in order to receive the message the speaker wishes to convey; instead the recipient is free to read the message at a later time.' " Ibid. (plurality opinion), quoting Heffron, supra, at 665 (Blackmun, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). With the possible exception of avoiding litter, see Schneider v. State (Town of Irvington), 308 U. S. 147, 162 (1939), it is difficult to point to any problems intrinsic to the act of leafletting that would make it naturally incompatible with a large, multipurpose forum such as those at issue here.

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