By Drew Pierson

Staff Writer

A picture is worth 1,000 words, unless one of them is "No."

The Rockville Town Square management company may enforce a policy similar to that in the Silver Spring Town Center. Two weeks ago, a security officer there stopped a man from taking pictures of that area's open-air shops and restaurants even though the pictures were for his own recreational use.

"If you can't take pictures, you can't do a lot of other things like assemble, protest or run for office, or do other core, American values," said Chip Py, the amateur photographer who was stopped by Silver Spring Town Center security guards as he was taking pictures of the town center's landscape. "These are all basic, First Amendment rights."

The Town Square, like the Silver Spring Town Center, was funded with a mixture of public and private money. Specifically, the city, county, state and federal government contributed $88 million of the $352 million necessary to build Town Square.

There are some situations in which people taking pictures in Town Square might be asked to stop, said Vikki Kayne, vice president of marketing and corporate communications for Federal Realty Investment Trust, the Town Square management company.

"It depends on a couple of things," Kayne said. "There is no written policy per se, but we're not going to let someone come in and take commercial pictures that they could turn around and sell."

When asked whether there would be situations when non-commercial photography would be forbidden, Kayne said: "I guess. We don't have a written policy so I don't really want to comment on that."

Current mayoral candidate Drew Powell said he was stopped from taking a picture of his son in front of the Rockville Library last week by a security guard.

"It's like the Soviet Union," Powell said, adding that he plans to ask the mayor and council at the next meeting to investigate the issue.

Most Rockville city officials said they had not considered the possibility that some photography would not be allowed in Town Square.

"This is kind of news to us," said Kimberly O'Sullivan, a Rockville city spokeswoman.

Paul T. Glasgow, the city attorney, said Gibbs Street and Maryland Avenue, the two streets that go through Town Square, as well as the Town Square plaza, are public areas. Glasgow said he could not think of why photography would not be allowed in the streets and plaza off the top of his head, but that he had not firmly researched the question.

Gibbs Street and Maryland Avenue differ from Ellsworth Drive, the street through the Silver Spring Town Center, because that street is private, said Rockville Councilwoman Susan R. Hoffmann. Hoffmann is the manager of marketing and communications in the Silver Spring Regional Services Center, the local source of government services for the Silver Spring and Takoma Park Region.

Hoffmann said she couldn't think of why photography would be forbidden in Town Square, and Rockville Mayor Larry Giammo said the idea was "a non-issue."

The Silver Spring Town Center is managed by Peterson Company, which has since reversed its policy. But Py said Peterson shouldn't have to grant him permission in the first place.

"These are the rights we get on the public streets," Py said. "We get those rights from the constitution, not from the Peterson Company."

File photo