So the scouts were ordered to vacate the 80-year-old headquarters they had occupied rent-free, or else pay $200,000 a year to lease the building from the Fairmount Park Commission. It is one of two offices operated by the council, which runs scout troops in the city and Delaware and Montgomery Counties.
The scouts contend the city's move is an unconstitutional "coercion" that violates the organization's rights to free speech and equal protection. The city leases land to other institutions with membership rules, including a Catholic church, and those groups do not face eviction, the scouts say. The city says the comparison is inaccurate.
A jury will decide, and both sides are sparring over how to screen the jury pool.
"The dispute at this point is really narrowed down to the basis for the city's decision to end its lease, and whether that's the same rule they apply across the board," said Mary Catherine Roper, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a brief endorsing the city's position.
The property is a half-acre at 22d and Winter Streets, about a block from Logan Square. The land was turned over to the Cradle of Liberty Scouts rent-free in 1928. They in turn erected a Beaux Arts-style headquarters at a Depression-era cost of $200,000, then gave the building to the Park Commission in return for the free lease.
Cradle of Liberty officials say they renovated the building in 1994 for $2.6 million. They serve 87,000 youths in Philadelphia, Delaware, and Montgomery Counties. A second office is near Valley Forge National Historical Park.
It's a First Amendment issue because there is a right to an "expressive association" under the Supreme Court decision, said Jason P. Gosselin, the Drinker Biddle & Reath L.L.P. attorney for the scouts.
