Garden Grove OKs Measure Opposing Visits by Vietnamese Communists

With a unanimous vote Tuesday by the City Council, Garden Grove became the first U.S. city to officially declare itself a “no-communist zone,” going on record as strongly opposing visits from representatives of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Because “the vast majority of ... residents of Vietnamese descent

The resolution urges city employees and officials to refrain from “initiating engagements with or facilitating” visits by Vietnamese communists, opposes the expenditure of city funds to promote such events and directs the police chief to require at least a 14-day notice from any agency requesting public safety assistance in connection with them.

“This is a moral issue for these people,” Mayor Bruce Broadwater, who proposed the resolution, said following the vote as an overflow crowd of about 200 Vietnamese residents, who had watched the meeting on television monitors from an adjacent room, chanted “Thank you” and “We love you.”

Added Councilman Mark Rosen, speaking directly to the crowd: “As long as the people in Vietnam don’t have the right to speak for themselves, the Garden Grove City Council will speak for them on behalf of freedom.”