Under current Virginia law, it is a Class 6 felony to intimidate others by displaying a swastika on a church, synagogue, or other religious worship location, as well as any school, educational facility, or community center owned or controlled by a religious entity.
Identical measures introduced by Del. Marcus Simon, D-Fairfax, and Del. Chris Obenshain, R-Montgomery, would broaden that statute to include erecting a swastika on an individual’s own property without their consent, a roadway, or another public area in a fashion that may make someone fear for their safety.
A Class 6 felony carries a one- to five-year jail sentence and a $2,500 fine. Alternatively, the court may impose incarceration for no more than 12 months and a fine, either alone or in combination.
Obenshain told the House floor this week that he was prompted to draft the legislation by an incident at Virginia Tech in which students were threatened and intimidated with swastikas scrawled on their dorm room flooring. He discovered that, even if the culprits had been found, they could not be prosecuted under present law.
Last month, several Jewish community representatives spoke in support of the bill before the House Criminal Subcommittee, including Ira Korshin, whose relatives were exterminated in Germany during the Holocaust.
“The swastika for us is synonymous with ill-intent to our people, the desire of destruction to our people and certainly to this day a threat of imminent danger,” according to Korshin. “Sadly, antisemitism is on the rise.”
Holocaust survivor Halina Zimm, 97, told the panel that she is still afraid every time she sees the emblem.
“It should not happen, not in America, not all over the world, but especially in our country and in Virginia,” Zimm told the crowd. “The only way to stop it is for us to… We must stand against it, speak up, and take action.”
Obenshain told the Mercury he was “not given any reason” why his version of the measure was not scheduled for a hearing and thus ultimately failed, but he stressed that the subject is vital to him and his people.
Simon’s bill cleared the House overwhelmingly and is now headed to the Senate.
Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, D-Alexandria, has proposed legislation that would require restaurants allowed to sell alcoholic beverages to provide free water to patrons upon request.
Bennett-Parker told the House ABC Gaming Subcommittee last month that her bill was prompted by a constituent who was denied free water and told to buy a bottle of water instead. “Ensuring that customers have access to free potable water is a common sense step to promote health, safety and responsible consumption,” Bennett-Parker told reporters.
The delegate stated that the Virginia Restaurant, Lodging, and Travel Association had maintained a neutral stance on her measure, “recognizing this simply codifies a practice already followed by most restaurants.”
According to the measure, hotels and clubs that are licensed and authorized to offer alcoholic beverages must also give free water.
Del. Paul Krizek, D-Fairfax, underlined that “this water is not spiked; it is regular H2O.”
The legislation passed the House with bipartisan support, but Republicans opposed it, and it will be heard by the Senate Committee on Rehabilitation and Social Services on Friday morning.
Sen. Mark Peake, R-Lynchburg, and Del. Tony Wilt, R-Harrisonburg, have introduced identical proposals to fix a loophole in state law that now permits home-delivery companies to provide cigarettes with little monitoring.
Peake told the Senate Courts of Justice Subcommittee last month that his bill targets “retail tobacco deliverers,” who are “kind of like Grubhub or whatever—the people who take food to your house are now taking cigarettes to your house.”
Sean Thornton, chief of the Attorney General’s Tobacco Enforcement Section, told the panel that the bill aims to “level the playing field” by requiring these companies to follow the same legal requirements as in-store retailers, such as registering to sell tobacco products, reporting monthly cigarette sales, and accurately verifying customers’ ages.
“We need to know the ages have been verified by the numbers in order to ensure kids aren’t finding a way around the system to buy cigarettes from the convenience of their homes via their computer or app on their computer,” Thornton told CNN.
Shaun Kenney, Director of Communications for the AG’s office, told the Mercury that exploiting the current loophole could jeopardize Virginia’s Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement payments, which range from $120 million to $150 million per year, if the office is held in noncompliance.
Both legislation passed unanimously via their respective legislatures.
