There’s no question that the right to distribute news is constitutionally protected. But two disturbing trends threaten that right: bans on news boxes by architectural commissions in Boston, and local politicians’ support for these bans. Last week, the Back Bay Architectural Association unanimously voted to ban news boxes from its district, which includes the bustling thoroughfares of Newbury and Boylston Streets. The arrogant move satisfied a tiny number of out-of-touch old-timers who in no way speak for the overwhelming majority of Back Bay residents.

Boston city councilor Mike Ross, who represents the Back Bay, enthusiastically supported the ban, saying at the meeting: “The bottom line on these boxes is they’re not working.... We have other sources [of distribution], we don’t need boxes.” It’s easy to understand why Ross, a first-term councilor, would feel the need to support a group of vocal constituents, but the Phoenix had hoped for a broader vision from the freshman. The city doesn’t need the boxes? Come on. Like it or not, the news distributed through these boxes is a vibrant part of community dialogue in this city. As WBZ talk-show host (and Back Bay resident) David Brudnoy asserted in a letter to William Young, the commission’s senior preservation planner: “[The ban] would restrict our ability to read a variety of news and opinion items, it would stifle an aspect of freedom of the press — if you can’t be read because nobody can find you, then you can’t transmit ideas, and there goes the freedom of the press to exist.”

Every paper in the city will be affected by this ban. Paid publications, including the Boston Herald, the Boston Globe, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Editorial Humor, will be hurt. And for free publications like the Phoenix and our sister publication Stuff@Night, along with the Back Bay Courant and the Tab papers, the ban will be devastating. The Phoenix, for example, currently distributes approximately 3000 copies weekly in the designated district. And the boxes empty out each week, which shows a demand for the paper. Without news boxes, the Phoenix has no other means by which to distribute those papers. And that, in effect, stifles our speech. The impact will be the same for other free publications not carried in stores.

The Back Bay commission has proposed a compromise: news “condominiums.” These are large boxes — “street furniture,” as the commission calls them — that would house all the papers now distributed in independent boxes. It sounds good — until the details are considered. The Phoenix can now fit between 100 and 150 issues into its boxes. At least one model of the condo boxes would hold, at best, just 20 to 30 copies of each paper. The publications placed in these boxes — which are championed by Ross as a “common ground” solution — will no longer be able to attract readers with compelling front pages. Which paper will get the most desirable placement in the condo box? And how will these decisions be made? By the city? By fee scale? Even if such boxes are limited to the Back Bay, what’s to stop groups in the South End, Charlestown, the North End, and every other nook and cranny in the city from making the same decision?

Advocates of the news-box ban like to point to a 1996 decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upholding a 1991 vote by the Beacon Hill Architectural Association to ban news boxes from the Beacon Hill historic district. But one bad precedent shouldn’t pave the way for another. Besides, there are a couple of crucial distinctions between the Beacon Hill ban and the one recently imposed by the Back Bay Architectural Commission.

The 1996 SJC decision is rooted in the Beacon Hill commission’s authority to regulate the appearance of the historic district: “... architectural features such as masonry, roofs, windows, sash and shutters, doors, trim, paint, and ironwork.” The most commercial street within the district, the court noted, is Charles Street. There is simply no way an argument can be made that Newbury and Boylston Streets, let alone Mass Ave — busy commercial streets with wide concrete sidewalks — compare in any way to the historical character of Charles Street and the rest of Beacon Hill. It should also be noted that news boxes do not populate the decidedly residential Beacon and Marlborough Streets, nor do they crowd Comm Ave. The architectural and historical integrity of the Back Bay’s residential streets is intact. Even so, this doesn’t make the neighborhood a private, gated community, whatever the members of the Back Bay Architectural Commission might like to think. Nor is the Back Bay stuck in a 19th-century time warp. Boston Herald columnist Tom Keane, who once held Ross’s seat on the council, dryly notes that the residents of the Back Bay now drive cars as opposed to horse-drawn buggies. And, as the Phoenix has noted before, news boxes are the modern-day equivalent of parchment tacked up to a post in the town square. The city has no right to tear it down.

The court also made much of the fact that alternate means of distribution were available to the affected newspapers — a provision without which the ban would violate the First Amendment. The decision carefully notes that the daily papers have home delivery, street vendors, and store sales. It even considered the situation faced by the Tab, a free weekly. Given that the Tab’s main distribution channel — mail delivery to home subscribers — would not be affected by the ban, the court concluded that the ban could be imposed. The court failed to consider the plight of myriad other free publications, along with Editorial Humor, which is sold through coin-operated boxes and cannot get stores to stock it. Its sales in Beacon Hill plummeted to zero after the ban took effect. This must not happen again. The city must block this ban.

Call City Hall to let Mayor Tom Menino know how you feel about the ban: 617-635-4000 or e-mail the mayor at mayor@ci.boston.ma.us

Councilor Mike Ross can be reached at (617)635-4225 or Michael.Ross@ci.boston.ma.us The following is the contact list for the other city councilors.

Daniel F. Conley (617)635-4210 Daniel.Conley@ci.boston.ma.us

Peggy Davis-Mullen (617)635-4220 Peggy.Davis-Mullen@ci.boston.ma.us

Maureen E. Feeney (617)635-3455 Maureen.Feeney@ci.boston.ma.us

Michael Flaherty (617)635-4205 Michael.F.Flaherty@ci.boston.ma.us

Maura Hennigan (617)635-4217 MauraH@ci.boston.ma.us

Brian Honan (617)635-3113 Brian.Honan@ci.boston.ma.us

James M. Kelly (617)635-3203 James.Kelly@ci.boston.ma.us

Stephen J. Murphy, At-Large (617)635-4376 Stephen.Murphy@ci.boston.ma.us

Francis M. Roache, At-Large (617)635-3115 mickey.roache@ci.boston.ma.us

Paul J. Scapicchio (617)635-3200 Paul.Scapicchio@ci.boston.ma.us

Chuck Turner (617)635-3510 Chuck.Turner@ci.boston.ma.us

Charles C. Yancey, President (617)635-3131 Charles.Yancey@ci.boston.ma.us

What do you think? Send an e-mail to letters[a]phx.com.