A proposed county ordinance intended to avoid conflict between patients and protestors at the Greenville Women's Clinic is going back to the drawing board amid constitutional concerns.
Greenville County Sheriff Hobart Lewis is asking County Council for legislation allowing his office to enforce regulations rather than serve as referees when anti-abortion demonstrators gather at the clinic on Grove Road.
The Sheriff says deputies have been dispatched to the clinic more than three hundred times over the past two years.
The Public Safety Committee had drafted a proposal. It would prohibit any physical contact between protestors and patients, no touching vehicles or any interference with traffic entering or leaving the clinic, plus a clear bag policy and no weapons on the premises.
Critics warning the rules could threaten First Amendment rights persuaded council to vote unanimously to send the ordinance back to the committee for further study.
Sheriff Lewis says he's confident those concerns will be satisfied, and he will keep a deputy on duty at the clinic whenever it's open.
