RECORD EDITORIAL: April Fool’s an apt week to roll out panhandler law

Aggressive panhandling ordinance is okay -- my friend Rob Teir wrote them, got them adopted and got them upheld in appellate courts.  BUT City of St. Augustine's new, distance-based ordinance is NOT necessary and does NOT pass constitutional muster under McCullen v. Coakley.

Ill-advised City burghers insist upon creating problems instead of solving them, failing to act to require City-owned restrooms be open and ADA accessible bathrooms despite USDOJ ADA complaint and irrefrrable evidence of public urination/defecation.




RECORD EDITORIAL: April Fool’s an apt week to roll out panhandler law

Posted at 12:01 AM
Updated at 6:08 AM
St. Augustine Record

St. Augustine embarks on a brave new world of regulation when its new panhandling ordinance goes into effect Thursday.

It may be telling that this editorial is being published on April Fool’s Day. It’s going to be an interesting couple of months — at least.

The new ordinance leaves little room for — how might we put this — behavioral, hygienic or geographic contingencies. In other words, the ordinance covers all the bases.

In the often mind-numbing practice of absorbing the legalese of ordinances, you know you’re in for something special when you encounter no less than 23 “whereas” paragraphs leading up to the actual law. These stipulate just why the ordinance is warranted. You’ll find neither an “i” not dotted nor a “t” not crossed.

What follows are dozens of pages of vivid, grisly accounts of the various ways sneezes, wheezes, urine, feces, vomit and every other bodily secretion can and will infect the general public when emitted by a panhandler. And the city has some pretty graphic evidence of them all.

Few of these concerns are new. It wasn’t that long ago the downtown Plaza was bordered all around by a hedge. That was eventually removed because of the feces and filth city workers were forced to contend with on an almost daily basis.

From where we sit, the biggest problem ahead will be with the public’s understanding of the new law, and acceptance will be a matter of definition. Who are these people?

We feel bad for the homeless; less so for vagrants; and even less so for panhandlers. But who’s who out there? Poor hygiene and dirty clothes are a common denominator that confuses the issue.

And that’s more planned than you might think.

We don’t believe the homeless are much of a problem downtown. Panhandlers are another story and an interesting one.

Cities that have done studies seem to agree that about 10 percent of the panhandlers are homeless. Begging has become a vocation. There are websites that hand out panhandling advice. Need.com advertises itself as “Market Research for Panhandlers.”

The website developer, Cathy Davie, wants people to start “thinking about panhandling as a realistic economic activity, rather than thinking that panhandlers are lazy or don’t work.” Website developers, too, we suspect.

At any rate, it will be a bumpy road ahead for all involved. One former police officer, who asked not to identified, saw a train wreck ahead. Will cops armed with tape measures be running up and down the streets with vagrants moving constantly so as not to be caught 20 feet from the entrance of a business? “Herding cats” was his metaphor.

But in the spirit of the day, we believe we can point to one bright hope for the ordinance. We remember a county ordinance that one might call “site specific” too, this one in an attempt to corral the concept of nudity.

The 358-word ordinance became a national story. Johnny Carson shared it with millions of viewers on his late-night show. The ordinance outlined legal parameters for terms such as “nude” and “breast,” but it was the definition of the derriere that became the butt of jokes to come.

It reads: “BUTTOCKS — The area at the rear of the human body (sometimes referred to as the gluteus maximus) which lies between two imaginary straight lines running parallel to the ground when a person is standing, the first or top such line being 1⁄2 inch below the top of the vertical cleavage of the nates (i.e., the prominence formed by the muscles running from the back of the hip to the back of the leg) and the second or bottom such line being 1⁄2 inch above the lowest point of the curvature of the fleshy protuberance (sometimes referred to ... as the gluteal fold), and between two imaginary straight lines, one on each side of the body (the “outside lines”), which outside lines are perpendicular to the ground and to the horizontal lines described above and which perpendicular outside lines pass through the outermost point(s) at which each nate meets the other side of leg. Notwithstanding the above, buttocks shall not include the leg, the hamstring muscle below the gluteal fold, the tensor fasciae latae muscle or any of the above-described portion of the human body that is between either the left inside perpendicular line and the left outside perpendicular line or the right inside perpendicular line and the right outside perpendicular line. For the purpose of the previous sentence the left inside perpendicular line shall be an imaginary straight line on the left side of the anus that is perpendicular to the ground and to the horizontal lines described above and that is 1/3 of the distance from the anus to the left outside line, and the right inside perpendicular line shall be an imaginary straight line on the right side of the anus that is perpendicular to the ground and to the horizontal lines described above and that is 1/3 of the distance from the anus to the right outside line.”

The bottom (sorry) line here is that this thing ended up passing stringent legal muster and several lawsuits — and there hasn’t been a single bared hamstring muscle below the gluteal fold in the county since.

If this worked, can the city’s chances be far behind (sorry, again)?

Flag

• Edward Adelbert Slavin
 
• Rank 0

1. City hired outside attorney MICHAEL KAHN for $25k because two (2) expensive full-time City Attorneys can't write ordinance? Why? He will charge us $300/hour when we get sued for violating First Amendment
2. City NEVER researched/analyzed 2014 Supreme Court case on distance-based restrictions on First Amendment protected activity, McCullum v. Coakley, which I called to City's attention in November, handing citation to City Manager John Patrick Regan, speaking to Commissioners as a group, and speaking to outside attorney MICHAEL KAHN, who NEVER called me to discuss it, despite repeated promises to do so. See https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-1168_6k47.pdf
3. Incurious City Commissioners NEVER read McCullum v. Coakley.
4. In response to my testimony, they asked a few stray questions at the eleventh hour. Is their inept performance supposed to be "close enough for government work?"
5. In response to persuasive public health testimony, City has NOT ordered ex-Mayors LEN WEEKS and JOE BOLES to open 81 St. George Street city-owned bathrooms 24/7. Why?
6. Again, a stray question is NOT sound policymaking.
7. City proved public urination/defecation, while ducking same concerns expressed in my complaint to USDOJ and U.S. Dept. of Education about violation of ADA by City/UF on restroom hours and ADA accessibility.
8. Last month, City ADA coordinator Todd Grant wrote me and said 111 Menendez restrooms at marina are available 24/7 -- that's 6/10 of a mile from the City-owned restrooms, which BOLES/WEEKS make available under terms of their no-bid below-market lease, which was exposed by Folio Weekly in 2014. See page 2 of Folio story at http://folioweekly.com/THE-BLOGGER-THE-LEASE-AND-THE-ST-AUGUSTINE-MAYORS-RACE,10719?page=2&;
9. Let's cancel the lease. Now.« less

• 30 minutes ago

• 
  0

  0

  0
   
  0

  0

  0
 
• Reply
 
• Share

Flag

• Edward Adelbert Slavin
 
• Rank 0

10. City still insensitive to our First Amendment.
11. City still lacks compassion for our elders and disabled.
12. City targeting yet another group to hate on, like artists/musicians Pyrrhic "victory."
13. City Manager WILLIAM BARRY HARRISS & Co. created panhandling problem by banning artists/musicians from St. George Street. There was no panhandling problem when our streets were "lively."
14. MICHAEL KAHN had a conflict of interest, having created the anti-artist ordinances, which helped create panhandling opportunity.
15. No public interest group testified in support of First Amendment values at the March 26, 2018 public hearing. Local clergymen were notably absent.
16. "Hearing" was a kabuki dance, choreographed, with Facebook "Vagrant Watch""members called as witnesses, not subject to cross-examination.
17. Unconstitutional ordinance may ban charitable solicitation and union organizers in its overinclusive attack on First Amendment protected activity.
18. City Commissioners marred Good Friday./Passover week by smugly showing a lack of compassion and competence, w/ no interest in First Amendment.
19. City again created a "crisis," refusing to enforce its law for 256 days.
20. As Saint Augustine said, "an unjust law is no law at all." His namesake City just created yet another "unjust law," which this editorial correctly says may be unenforceable. It's unconstitutional, failing to give notice as to what conduct is prohibited: "... it will be a bumpy road ahead for all involved. One former police officer, who asked not to identified, saw a train wreck ahead. Will cops armed with tape measures be running up and down the streets with vagrants moving constantly so as not to be caught 20 feet from the entrance of a business? 'Herding cats' was his metaphor."« less

• 5 minutes ago

• 
  0

  0

  0
   
  0

  0

  0
 
• Reply
 
• Share

Flag

• Edward Adelbert Slavin
 
• Rank 0

21. "Whatever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me."
22. I respectfully dissent from Commissioners' enactment of this odd distance-based ordinance, yet another "unjust law."
23. We need a new St. Augustine City Attorney -- it's time for ISABELLE CHRISTINE LOPEZ to go.
24. Louche LOPEZ can't write a simple ordinance, we went 256 days without a panhandling ordinance being enforced, and she missed the deadline to file to make Whetstones pay some $219,000 in City legal fees on Whetstones' frivolous bottomlands ownership litigation. (Shade Meeting discussed the attorney fee issue. Then she and Gunster firm made materially false and misleading misrepresentations about availability of legal fees. )« less