SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The City of Sacramento paid a $17,000 settlement in a lawsuit filed over a former city ordinance that required residents to stand and salute the American flag while The Star-Spangled Banner was performed.
The lawsuit, which was first reported by The Sacramento Bee, was filed by attorneys on behalf of Jack Lipeles in July 2020.
The obscure ordinance was adopted by the city back in 1928. Mayor Darrell Steinberg and other city leaders said they were not even aware the ordinance existed until Lipeles filed a lawsuit challenging it.
“There is simply no place today for such required displays of allegiance,” Steinberg said after learning of the lawsuit back in 2020.
The city council voted to recall the ordinance at their last meeting of July 2020. The “repeal ordinance” went into effect on Sept. 17, 2020.
“The City Council acted on this matter by rescinding the old ordinance very quickly. We are pleased that we were able to resolve this case expeditiously and for a limited amount of attorney’s fees,” City Attorney Susana Alcala said in a statement following the settlement. The terms of the settlement are included at the bottom of this article.
The original ordinance was enacted at the request of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) as part of a package of protocols on flag handling back in May 1928, according to the mayor’s office.
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