Can someone shed light on what the law has to say about the situation depicted in this video? Were the police properly enforcing the law? Why does the news crew get to stay on the corner but not the guy in the orange suit?
Maybe they have some type of inclusive permit for that sort of thing? It seems as if the clip isn’t telling the whole story. The police mention the mascot “jumping in front of the camera”. Perhaps he was disrupting the news crew’s story?
A passing reference in this article says that loitering in NY is “illegal only when the suspect is loitering for drug- or prostitution-related reasons”. I don’t know if this is accurate, but my 32 seconds of Google searching produced nothing more substantial
Well, just for the record, the subject line here calls this a loitering arrest, and nobody was arrested. He was just told to leave the area by the cops. Also, you’re seeing an edited video presented by the activist group, so we don’t have any idea what was done to provoke the news crew. The news guy seem to be implying that the mascot had disrupted one of their live shots, but the video is cut to make it look like he just started yelling at the mascot out of the blue.
Search youtube for other videos with “Hungrr” in the title, and you’ll see other examples of their “street theater,” like this one outside Rockefeller center, or this one at the Museum of Modern Art. I think a reasonable person could conclude that their goal is to get publicity for their cause by creating a disruption
All I got would be that even a charity like this is a type of commercial interest. The guy is trying to score free TV advertising for his cause. TV stations charge alot of money for that kind of exposure. So effectively he is trying to steal advertising by intentionally placing himself in their shot.
Thin, but mighty rude on the part of the mascot. If the news crews were impeding the mascots business in some way the cops would move the news crew.
IAmNotSpartacus was correct about the law in New York. The code for loitering applies only to prostitution or drug activities. The relevant code would be disorderly conduct. (240.20) There are seven sections to the code so I’ll link to it rather than reprinting it here. If you are interested you can read it yourself, but I think the police were clearly within their authority to ask the mascot to leave and threaten to arrest him if he refused.
I went to their website, and it said,
So, and here’s where I slip into pretty soggy ground, but if they’re so wonderful, why aren’t they a nonprofit, taxexempt organization?
-Lil
Slight hijack: what would happen if I was standing at a corner of the street, waiting for my date? Would that be loitering, by the letter of the law? I now know it’s not in New York, but what about the other states?
And what about the UK, by the way?
How big are they and how visible do they want to be to the government? Non-profit charity status requires registration with the government, defined byllaws and organisation, external verification of bookkeeping, etc, at least where I live.
This
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=425146&highlight=loitering
thread had some interesting posts, I like my research about Loitering and the law myself. 
It might be loitering in New York, too. What did you say your girlfriend did for a living?
The news crew would not have cared unless you were making a spectacle of yourself and interfering with their shot while trying to draw attention to your business.
Also, the police never said the mascot was loitering. The news guy said he was.
C’mon. It’s New Yawk City. The law is whatever Hizzonner Da Mayuh says it is, by way of the average beat cop.
Don’t like it? They’ll shoot you 19 times, and shove a broomstick up your ass.
Well, yeah, but they generally[sup]*[/sup] prefer nice, quiet, unobserved vestibules and precinct men’s rooms, rather than public streets.
Of course, plenty of room for a concealed weapon in a character costume…
[sup]*[/sup]After hours in front of a nightclub is another story…
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/92565/groom_shot_and_killed_by_police_hours.html
S’truth. The local science-fiction society (The folks who put on a convention) here had incorporated and looked into becoming a non-profit corp. There was so much hassle with the paperwork and all, not just setting it up but for their reports every, it gave it up as a bad idea. Instead they carefully watch that the expenses wind up about a buck and a half less than the income at end of the convention.
He was working. He was passing out buttons .
GQ probably is not the place to debate the merits of what the orange headed mascot was doing…
However, he was accused of disrupting a live newscast, and that’s probably enough to warrant disorderly conduct charges.
In some areas of NYC, street performers need a license to do their thing. Even in areas where that doesn’t apply, police officers aren’t shy about asking them to move along if they’re impeding pedestrian traffic or creating a disturbance.
(FWIW, to perform in the NYC subway stations, you have to audition , and then you’re assigned a location and a scheduled time.)
This occurred on a public sidewalk, right?
Could you point me to the law against disrupting a live newscast? Perhaps you could also point me to the place where freedom of the press includes the right to not have people you don’t like in your camera shot in a public place?
I linked to the disorderly conduct code in the NY State penal code. I think it’s broad enough to cover what we see on the tape. The cops obviously agreed, right or wrong.
But again, nobody was arrested or charged with a crime in this video. The OP asked whether the cops were within their rights to ask the mascot to move, and I think that they clearly were.