COLORADO SPRINGS — Before being ticketed Saturday for trespassing, Douglas Bruce had previously been warned he wasn’t welcome to collect signatures for his ballot measures at Costco and knew that police were likely to be called – just as they had when he did the same thing last year.
Bruce and another man, Douglas Stinehagen, were cited by police last weekend for trespassing while collecting signatures either in the parking lot or in the entrance of the Costco store off Powers Boulevard after ignoring employees’ and officers’ requests to leave the store’s property.
Bruce and Stinehagen were collecting signatures for a proposed ballot measure that would phase out fees for city enterprises, such as stormwater fees, and bar the city from receiving millions of dollars in payments in lieu of taxes from Colorado Springs Utilities.
Costco manager John Wynns said Tuesday Bruce was aware that the store bars all solicitors from its property, from Girl Scouts to political activists. He said Bruce knew that because Costco employees called police last year for exactly the same thing – collecting signatures for ballot measures outside the store.
Costco had a company attorney send Bruce a letter last year explaining its policy prohibiting political soliciting on its property, Wynns said.
“Usually I can just ask them (solicitors) to leave and they’ll leave,” Wynns said. “Since I’ve been here, we’ve only had to call police twice. Both times were on Mr. Bruce.”
Read the rest of this story, including what Bruce had to say, at .
