"Charlottesville police issued 12 tickets for minor traffic violations Friday - four for excessive horn honking - during what has become a Friday afternoon ritual of 'living wage' protests on West Main Street, replete with 'Honk if you support...' placards.

It was the first time in more than 40 weeks of demonstrating in front of the Courtyard by Marriott hotel that police have cracked down on drivers who lay on their horns, protester, and 20-year-old University of Virginia student Nicholas Graber-Grace said.

'They've never said anything before about excessive honking,' complained Graber-Grace, who said he is studying political and social thought at UVa. 'It's absolutely not justified. This is a form of speech, people expressing their discontent and desire for justice.'

Graber-Grace, who said he is getting paid a living wage for his summer internship at the Virginia Organizing Project, was one of four charged with trespassing July 13 after they staged a living wage demonstration on the Downtown Mall and chained themselves to the inside of an elevator in the Omni Charlottesville Hotel.

Timothy J. Longo, the city's police chief, said police have received complaints about the honking during the weekly 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. demonstrations outside the Marriott but that the incident at the Omni 'escalated' the stakes.

He also said police had been asked to provide security Friday around the Marriott because country star LeAnn Rimes, who is slated to perform in Nelson County tonight, was staying there Friday.

'I will do everything in my power to preserve their constitutional right to free speech,' Longo said of the protesters. 'What I will not do is tolerate activity that has the potential to create disorder. First, excessive honking is against the law; second, it has the potential to jeopardize public safety.'

'What if someone slammed on his brakes because of honking and, God forbid, someone got hurt? Then what? Our job is to preserve the peace,' Longo said.

The labor activists are demanding that the hotels pay their employees a 'living wage,' in Charlottesville defined as about $8 per hour.

They have led a recent campaign to enact a law requiring the city to pay its contracted employees a living wage, a move the Chamber of Commerce has opposed and the legality of which is contested.

On Tuesday the labor group, along with two other activist organizations, plans to plant several toilet bowls in front of the chamber's headquarters in protest.

Graber-Grace said they will offer to pay anyone $6.50 to scrub a bowl for an hour.

City Councilor Kevin Lynch, an electrical engineer who said he worked as a janitor in Alexandria while he was in high school, said he will be at the toilet bowl protest, lending his support.

'It'll draw people's attention,' he said" (Adrienne Schwisow, The Daily Progress, July 28, 2001).