Amendment: Restrict Panhandling

[Captain Clueless]

Driving home this afternoon, I see the a familiar fair-weather sight -- the panhandler with the cardboard sign begging at the busy intersection.

(BTW, please DON'T turn this into a "is-he-really-destitute-or-homeless" argument. It's beside the point.)

Las Vegas is fighting its own losing battle. There, pamphleteers were accosting pedestrians on the strip with explicit fliers for adult entertainment and services. LV tried to prevent the practice by declaring a certain section a "resort zone" or somesuch; the court challenge is pending.

Why are these annoyances allowed to persist? Because the Supreme Court says that panhandling is a constitutionally protected form of commercial speech.

What if a narrowly drawn amendment were passed that would allow states and municipalities freedom to restrict begging/panhandling? Would it make society a better place?

[matt_mcl]

What I am hearing is that you moved to a city of some millions of people and then expected to not run into any of them. Interesting...

Geez. If you don't like panhandlers, don't ban them from panhandling; give them the ability to survive without panhandling. You think they're doing it for fun?

I'm curious Captain. What language would you use for this proposed amendment that would only prohibit "panhandling"? Personally I think rewriting the Constitution to address panhandling is using a very large stick on a very small problem.

[Markxxx]

What I hate are the panhandlers and street performers (most of them) that do not respect your rights. Oh they are the first to complain about their rights being violated but I have said "Sorry, Can't help," and most give you the rudest comments back. What they don't seem to understand is the same right that gives you the ability to ask for money gives me the right to say "No."

Also the street performers who play in the street are fine but they should not be allowed to play in subways or el stops. Those places are restricted access. I mean if I don't like a performer and he is on the street I can simply walk the other way around the block. But on a subway I am forced to stand there and listen to the music, I may not like, Your free speech violates my right not to hear your music

So I wouldn't mind seeing more restrictive laws. I am all for helping out people who need it like the disabled, or the mentally ill but some of those people begging cleary show no effort of helping themselves.

[Astroglide]

Also the street performers who play in the street are fine but they should not be allowed to play in subways or el stops. Those places are restricted access. I mean if I don't like a performer and he is on the street I can simply walk the other way around the block. But on a subway I am forced to stand there and listen to the music, I may not like, Your free speech violates my right not to hear your music

So I wouldn't mind seeing more restrictive laws.

Your post has violated my right not to hear pompous, quasi-fascist, half-baked opinions; yet I can not unread it.

...some of those people begging cleary show no effort of helping themselves.

1. I wish I possessed the ability to determine a person's life history and motives while looking down my nose at them.

2. Street performers, at least, are showing some effort of some sort. Busking is (or should be) a respected venture.

[Jodi]

Unless the busker is a mime who refuses to leave me alone. Then I, like Opus the Penguin, should be allowed to beat him to death with a loaf of french bread and have it widely recognized as justifiable homocide.

[bantmof]

Unless the busker is a mime who refuses to leave me alone. Then I, like Opus the Penguin, should be allowed to beat him to death with a loaf of french bread and have it widely recognized as justifiable homocide.

Or, you could shoot him, but since he was a mime, you'd have to use a silencer.

--
peas on earth

[AWB]

jodih said: Unless the busker is a mime who refuses to leave me alone. Then I, like Opus the Penguin, should be allowed to beat him to death with a loaf of french bread and have it widely recognized as justifiable homocide.

I believe Opus' weapon was an olive loaf. :)

[Keeves]

Can anyone suggest how such a law might be written, so that it is still legal to ask someone how to get to a certain place?

[egospark]

To quote Anatole France:

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

[matt_mcl]

Thank you, egospark. I was going to quote that one. It's one of my favourite quotations.

[matt_mcl]

It is my considered opinion that attempts to restrict or ban panhandlers, mimes, street performers, and squeegee kids are based on this fear of poor people and the idea that maybe if you don't see them, they'll go away. It makes a capitalist very uncomfortable to see that capitalism has failed these people so utterly. Perhaps that's why they hate them so.

[Hello Again]

"Mystery Man Mugs Mime With Meat; Millions Make Merry"

-Bloom Picayune headline. lord, I loved Bloom County

[VileOrb]

Check out this site for some good info on this subject.
http://www.cjlf.org/publctns/Panhandling/Ptoc.htm

I am trying to figure out how to say something here that won't make everyone think I'm a racist. Actually, one of the things I hate about panhandling is that it has made me think racist thoughts.

In Baltimore, where I used to live, I once spent a day just walking around the city. I like the look and feel of the city and just spent my day off wandering around looking for new sights. I must have been asked for money a hundred times. Every person who asked me for money was black (~90% male). About half of these people were dressed nicely and looked like they didn't need a handout. Some were teenagers and I forgive them their tresspasses but curse their parents. I have been asked for money by people of many races but by far the bulk of them have been black and I've never been asked for a handout by a well dressed person of any race but black. Is there some cultural reason for this? Or, is it just that a lot of black people are poor? Do poor black people blow their last dime on grooming so that they can look nice when they go out panhandling? Can we give permits to legitimately destitute people or something?

Last I heard they had passed a law in Bmore making it illegal to give money to panhandlers, but it had been challenged. It would be pretty tough to enforce anyway.

I have also seen statistics that show that there are free shelters enough for all the adult homeless in Bmore and soup kitchens enough to feed them all. The shelters do not admit anyone under the influence of drugs or alcohol though. They a short on facilities for children though. They have several places that insist that the parents give up custody. This is not legal but, as the people who run these places say they will just shut down if forced to change their policy, the city has decided not to enforce the law. I used to know where a lot of the soup kitchen etc. were and, upon being asked for money, would give directions. I was usually ignored, but on a couple of occasions, I was genuinely thanked.

This is my longest post to date and is not filled with SD style myth destruction but instead full of personal experience and speculation. :( Sorry. I hope it is at least interesting. And, I hope you don't all come down on me for spreading racist propaganda. Maybe my experiences are not typical, if so let me know.

------------------
If men had wings,
and bore black feathers,
few of them would be clever enough to be crows.

- Rev. Henry Ward Beecher

[VileOrb]

I'd like to add that my remarks on giving permits to legitmately destitute were not intended to head this thread toward the ' "is-he-really-destitute-or-homeless" argument.' I don't think that it is 'beside the point' but I am trying to honor the original poster's request. My comment was intended to head in the "reduce the panhandling problem by making it illegal for the non-needy" direction.

Oh, and delete the "'though' after 'children'" in the previous post. Other, smaller, style errors also occured but I can live with them.

[VileOrb]

Arrrrgh, I couldn't keep my quotes straight. Sorry.

[bantmof]

It makes a capitalist very uncomfortable to see that capitalism has failed these people so utterly.

Something has clearly failed in most of those cases, but it surely wasn't capitalism.

I don't have a problem with street performers. Some of them are good, some aren't; sometimes I chip in some bucks if I like what they're doing and they're not going about it by trying to annoy people. Most of them I've encountered seemed to be pretty cool; some actually are good musicians and seem to be actually trying to make good music.

I have a BIG problem with the "smear your windsheld with goo and then charge you money to wipe it off so you can see" school of panhandling. If you start out by annoying me, you won't get my money no matter how good your sob story is. If you try to sell me newspapers you stole from the newspaper box, you also won't get my money.

One experience I had with panhandlers: I'd seen a guy with a "will work for food" sign on one street for a few weeks running. So I offered him $10 an hour plus lunch to do some yardwork for me once a week for the summer, and offered him transportation to and from wherever he hung out. I made the offer in good faith, but he wasn't interested <shrug> - didn't make any real attempted to conceal his contempt, either. I later learned I wasn't the only one to offer him some work, but he always turned it down. Apparently he was doing OK just on handouts without having to actually take any of the jobs. If he could make more than $10 in an hour sitting on the street, I guess there's no motivation for him to take the job I offered.

--
peas on earth

[Doug Bowe]

My personal problem with panhandlers is a feeling of being lied to. I feel most people don't like dishonesty.
"Will Work for Food" is dishonest because to subject of the stories we hear about won't work. And there are places for a homeless person to get food. I have even offered to take one person the the Salvation Army (which I contribute to) and was turned down.
I've seen things on signs like "Vietnam Era." Anyone alive from that period was Vietnam Era. I get steamed thinking that the person is trying to pass himself off as a destitute Vet.
By the way, almost all of the beggers in my area are white. And my area is 69% Hispanic!

[Big Iron]

Same here -- almost all the panhandlers I see in Providence are white.

[Hazel]

I think the race of panhandlers is a reflection of the racial mix of the area in which one lives. Baltimore is a majority black city.

I think that if the economy were really good, we would see way fewer panhandlers. We only buy the idea that the economy is good because none of us have ever experienced a really good economy.

[threemae]

When people say that panhandlers have been "failed" by capitalism, simply look at communism. If you go to Cuba, you will find beggars, more so than in any American city and only a small fraction of the Cuban economy makes even the average American per-capita income. In better economies, there is greater competition for workers and thus higher wages providing a "good" life for those willing to work.

P.S. Beggars and panhandlers here in Denver represent a broad spectrum of races proportional to population.


------------------
There is no safety for honest men but by believing all possible evil of evil men.

--Edmund Burke

[CowJason]

Pan-handling is a product of capitolism. As long as those who are deriving thier substanance from begging have an inflow of capitol, they'll continue to do what they do to get that money, as any buisnessman would. If all the people in the world were to stop giving them spare change one day, very quickly the beggers would realize that it isn't worthy their while. For capitolism to benifit a person, a person must make capitolism benifit him. In this case, I believe the pan-handlers are doing this, while those giving thier money may not be. This is the beuty of economic freedom: if we really decide that we don't want pan-handlers in the streets, all we have to do is decide not to give them money. Bam. Capitolism works, and we don't need to bring Big Brother into this.

Now back to the original pondering. To create a good law (ammendment, in this case) that will only stop pan-handling we must define pan-handling completely. Now, stop me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that only the agressive type of pan-handling bothered you. Is it really the pan-handling that you seek to get rid of then, or the obnoxious behavior? I don't know Californian law, but I have faith that there are already laws that protect you from most kinds of harrasment. Couldn't those who infringe upon your rights be brought up on charges because of the bad things they do?

------------------
"Nothing so much amuses me as this sign of the extent to which human beings have been carried away by fanaticism and stupidity; although the prodigious spectacle of folly we are facing here may be horrible, it is always interesting." - Marquis de Sade, predicting Usenet

[CowJason]

Yes, I know, capitAlism. I typed that. I swear.

[CowJason]

Yes, I know, capitAlism. I typed that. I swear.

[matt_mcl]

The opposite of capitalism is not communism, which in the case of the USSR, Cuba, and China, is an euphemism for "state capitalism". In an actual social-democratic state, the economy is regulated by, not owned by, the government.

[VileOrb]

Those who commented on a different racial mix of panhandlers than my experience, do you get requests for money from well to do looking folks who, apparently, are just walking from the office to a restaurant for lunch and are taking the opportunity to pick up a couple extra bucks? These are the people that really irritate me. A co-worker of mine in Bmore used to pay for his lunch pretty consistently in this manner. I would like to see laws in place that made this kind of thing easily punished with heavy fines.

Yeah, the dishonest ones annoy me, too.
Whether I give usually depends on :
a) apparent need (tremors count a lot)
b) whether the approach is polite
c) whether I can afford lunch that day myself

No, I do not think panhandling should be outlawed. I'd rather them ASK for the money than just TAKE it.

Why does a recovering alcoholic like me give a shaky wino money instead of an AA speech?
Because he's heard all that. He just isn't ready to quit, or perhaps he never will be.
Delerium tremens is not only agonizing, it can be fatal(I was in the ER 3 times for it). If he needs a ride to the hospital or detox unit, I'll give it to him. But if he says he needs a drink, then that is exactly what he needs. Incidentally, I work at a halfway house. I tell them that help is available; I just don't preach.

P.S. A note on the vacuum cleaner where I work said "Broke-Needs Fix." I thought for a second that what they meant was "Will Work for Heroin."

just kiddin' around....

[Big Iron]

[[Those who commented on a different racial mix of panhandlers than my experience, do you get requests for money from well to do looking folks who, apparently, are just walking from the office to a restaurant for lunch and are taking the opportunity to pick up a couple extra bucks? These are the people that really irritate me.]]


That has never happened to me, save the random instances where someone I know is short a buck or two that day and will pay me soon (or has paid for me recently).


[[ A co-worker of mine in Bmore used to pay for his lunch pretty consistently in this manner. I would like to see laws in place that made this kind of thing easily punished with heavy fines. ]]


Or you could (A) grow a spine, or (B) associate with a better class of person.

[gene]

Anyone comment about the economics of begging? Seems to me I read about some NYU grad students who conducted an experiment at the NYC Port Authority Bus station, a few years back. I seem to remember that a reasonably hard-working panhandler could easily beat out a minimum-wage job holder, with just a few hours/day of this "work". Moreover, panhandlers could improve their hourly return by a few simple steps: be polite, have a good "sob" story (e.g. "i'm from Indiana, my car broke down,etc."), and use soap/deodorant. Finally, let us remember that panhandlers don't pay: state/federal income taxes, SS, health insurance, etc.
So give it a try, all you burnout cases!

[Captain Clueless]

Glad to see that my question sparked so much interest.

The suggestion of outlawing invasive, annoying panhandling is a great idea, but it would be difficult to enforce in practice. It's so much easier for police to immediately ask anyone with a cardboard sign to quit it. Could cities be like airports and define a certain panhandling area, allowing them to force panhandlers in other areas to move along?

[typertrphy]

I will give to those who I sense are for real. It's not a cardboard sign, it's looking into someone's eyes. Are we such poor judges of people that we feel powerless? We give blindly, or refuse to give simply because we are asked to? Look at the person asking. Ask some questions back. I don't do it much, but when I do, it is someone who has struck me inside.....
Typer

[Dirty Devil]

Have you ever looked into the eyes of some of these people? It breaks my heart. Not all panhandlers, by any means. Many are "professional" beggars, who are on the same corner everyday (there's one guy here in San Francisco who has a sign that says "Stranded - need to get back to LA". He's been doing this, same spot, same sign, for two years!). These people are usually pretty easy to spot. I also think there should be laws against harassment and aggressiveness by these people. But some of these folks are at the end of their proverbial rope. They have led horrible lives, many served in Vietnam and came back screwed up, most have no self-worth, many are mentally unbalanced, and they are living in the gutter. The fucking gutter, man! And you want to kick them off the street because they asked you for a quarter? No one says you have to give to these people. No one says that you even have to acknowledge that they are there.

Why don't you show just a hair of human compassion. Or better yet, why don't you get out of the damn city, go to the suburbs or the country, and pretend to yourself that homelessness doesn't exist. After all, out of sight, out of mind, right?

[VileOrb]

I would like to clarify that I did not give the co-worker the money for his lunch. He got it from passersby on the street. I don't need to grow a spine. I have a perfectly good one. I even refused to pitch in for his farewell lunch (he was fired for consistent lateness and is suing on grounds of racism). You can imagine how that made the blacks in the office treat me. I soon left the company to pursue a better working environment.

I give regularly to charity and volunteer at soup kitchens when I can. I don't give money to panhandlers.

I still say the best policy is to send the panhandlers to places where they can get the food, shelter, or treatment that they need.

I think that a city that really wanted to stop the panhandling could do a lot toward that by making widely availble a map of the city with all the shelters etc clearly marked. They would pair this with a good advertising campaign giving facts to the population about the extent of the homeless problem etc. and recommendations for how to deal with panhandlers. As with many problems, education seems the best answer.

As far as a hair of human compassion, the ones who break my heart are the ones who have mental problems that make them incapable of finding a shelter. Sometimes they have paranoia or phobias or whatever that makes them incapable of functioning in society. They have no family to help them and they can't even apply for assistance because they are incapable. These are the ones that slip through the cracks. They need a lot of help. More than I can give. I took one guy down to social services and tried to help him fill out some forms. The person there assured me that he would get counseling and assistance. I went to check on him and was informed he didn't show up to pick up his check and had disappeared from the shelter. I thought, "Well, of course! He can't even tie his shoes and you expect him to be able to deal with the processes of government?" I think the social services are so overworked that they have decided to let the ones like him go. I, too, have to let them go because I don't have the resources to help them. But, it breaks my heart sometimes.

------------------
If men had wings,
and bore black feathers,
few of them would be clever enough to be crows.

- Rev. Henry Ward Beecher

[Temujin]

Restrict panhandling? I'm not sure that would solve anything. Such a law probably would not stop people from begging; it would only make them criminals as well as beggars.
This thread suggests broader questions: Why do people panhandle? And how should a socially responsible person respond?
Some people probably panhandle because it is their only means of subsistence, as matt_mcl suggests. That's not true of all panhandlers, though. On two occasions in two different countries, I have invited panhandlers to come with me to the grocery store, so that I could buy them whatever food they wanted.
On the first occasion, in Germany, the panhandler repeatedly asked for money as we walked along, while I repeatedly told him that I would give him food instead of money. When he finally realized I was not going to give him any money, he walked away.
On the second occasion, in the United States, the panhandler was a woman who insisted she needed money to buy food for her children. We were across the street from a Dominick's grocery store. I pointed to the store and said: ''Let's go there, and I'll buy you whatever you want.'' She responded (with a straight face): ''I don't shop at Dominick's.''
In my experience, many panhandlers do not want money for food. Some of them (not all) probably want money for drugs, or for booze. If I give them money, am I not potentially enabling destructive behavior?
So my personal choice is to politely decline to give panhandlers money. I usually look them in the eye and say, ''Sorry,'' because I don't want to fall into the habit of treating these people as objects.
I'm curious how other people feel: At that moment when a person holds his or her hand out and asks for money in the street, what is the moral thing to do?

[DSYoungEsq]

What if a narrowly drawn amendment were passed that would allow states and municipalities freedom to restrict begging/panhandling? Would it make society a better place?

And now, a reply to the actual question.

First of all, in general, we have tried to avoid amending the constitution to deal with limited social issues. Occaisionally, an amendment is added to deal with a limited problem, but for the most part, the idea is to save constitutional pronouncement for areas of significant social or legal impact, e.g. voting age, voting gender, how to elect senators, etc.

If we were to try to amend the constitution to allow our society at a given time to deal with 'unpleasantness' through narrowly tailored amendments, the thought is that we would end up amending it everytime we turned around, often undoing it later when a different majority of thought gained sway. For a classic example of the pitfalls involved, you might study the history of Prohibition.

As for whether or not it would make society a better place, that is a subjective question. If you can't stand seeing or being bothered by people who beg, then yes, it would make it a better place. If instead you don't mind seeing this activity, and understand the social issues that drive them to it, and would miss the diversity they represent, then no, I don't think it would. Regardless, the threat of opening the Constitution up for attack whenever we don't like something would be a terrible blow. After all, the whole POINT to the Bill of Rights is to keep us from outlawing or preventing activity that a majority of us don't like at a given time, when that activity falls into certain classes that the framers felt needed such protection. IMHO.