ALBANY – The state did not violate the constitutional rights of the owners of the “Wandering Dago” lunch cart by barring it from a popular gathering spot for state workers because its name could be regarded as an ethnic slur, a federal judge ruled.
Northern District Judge Mae D’Agostino said the area of the Empire State Plaza government complex in Albany designated for food vendors represented a “nonpublic forum” for purposes of the owners’ constitutional objections, meaning that the restrictions on speech imposed by the state in such contexts “must only be reasonable and viewpoint neutral.”
