It took two (2) reporters to write a shallow story for the St. Augustine Record, ignoring serious legal questions about a unconstitutional panhandling that is probably unconstitutional, now being emulated why other Florida cities. That's the power and influence of ex-Mayors CLAUDE LEONARD WEEKS, JR. and JOSEPH LESTER BOLES, JR., dull Republican Lords of All They Survey, still influencing violations of civil and constitution rights. This ordinance stinks on ice. https://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2018/11/record-prints-yet-another-puff-piece.html
1. No model of legal draftsmanship, the City's panhandling ordinance is probably unconstitutional because of its distance-based limitation on First Amendment protected activity, an approach struck down by the United States Supreme Court unanimously in McCullum v. Coakley, 573 U.S. ___ (2014), 134 S. Ct. 2518; 189 L. Ed. 2d 502; 2014 U.S. LEXIS 4499. That case struck down a Massachusetts law that set a 35 foot buffer zone around abortion clinics, even though it was facially neutral.
2. Mr. Michael Kahn is a conman who is a member of the Republican National Lawyers Association and solicits business from governments, like Kansas conman Kris Kobach (if that's his real name). Conman Kahn wrote City ordinances that resulted in banning artists and musicians from St. George Street. Eliminating the artists and musicians helped destroy the ambience of St. George Street, opening the street to panhandlers. It was a conflict of interest to hire this conman to solve the problem that his own ordinance helped create. Now he's conning other cities.
3. I hope that an aggrieved citizen sues and wins damages, injunctive relief and attorney fees against some or all of these cities for violating the First and Ninth Amendments. Enough messing with civil and constitutional rights in St. Augustine, Florida at the behest of ex-Mayors and business partners LEN WEEKS and JOE BOLES and other bullies. (On September 25, 2014, LEN WEEKS destroyed 211-year-old Don Pedro Fornells House and was fined only $3700 for working without permits, after which he was publicly hugged by City Attorney ISABELLE CHRISTINE LOPEZ).
4. The City could have adopted an aggressive panhandling ordinance without a distance limitation. Other-directed Commissioners and staff NEVER discussed my concerns about McCullum v. Coakley, 2017-2018. Kahn and the City Attorney were unjust stewards of civil rights on this one, and the ordinance don't deserve praise or emulation.
5. Once again, the Record has let its readers down, without research on constitutional rights.
6. This ordinance stinks on ice.
7. In the words of our City's patron, Saint Augustine, "An unjust law is no law at all."
Cities look to St. Augustine’s panhandling laws as model for relief, but some say serious problems linger
By Jared Keever
By Sheldon Gardner
Posted Oct 27, 2018 at 4:06 PM
Updated Oct 27, 2018 at 8:40 PM
St. Augustine Record
As visitors, late-night diners and shoppers strolled along St. George Street Wednesday night, they likely encountered few, if any, panhandlers.
Once a fixture on the pedestrian-only street at the heart of St. Augustine’s downtown, an 8 p.m. stroll turned up very few in the old, regular spots.
“I think it has been like that since we enacted the panhandler ordinance,” Police Chief Barry Fox said Thursday.
While it may appear a small success to business owners and residents, a closer look shows that the city continues to deal with chronic homelessness, the symptoms of which are still visible beyond St. George Street.
Yet the small victory seems to have other cities at least considering following in St. Augustine’s footsteps.
Attorney Michael Kahn, the architect of the city’s panhandling restrictions, told The Record this week that he has been hired by the City of Daytona Beach to draft a similar ordinance and has been in talks with at least five other cities about the issue as well.
The Daytona Beach City Commission voted in July to hire Kahn for $30,000 to create the ordinance, according to a WFTV report.
City Police Chief Craig Capri supported Daytona Beach trying St. Augustine’s approach and called the difference in St. Augustine “night and day,” according to an article in the The Daytona Beach News-Journal.
Kahn said his goal is to have the Daytona Beach ordinance finished early next year.
Fox said he too has been contacted by police chiefs from about four other cities around Florida asking about St. Augustine’s seeming success.
“I give them what we’ve been able to do,” he said.
But Fox also points out that putting a dent in the panhandling problem is not the same as solving homelessness.
“Two different issues,” he said.
On Wednesday evening, about five people huddled at the end of a walkway at City Hall along Granada Street — one slept on a window sill — and roughly 10 or more sat or lay along a fence at the intersection of Bridge and Granada streets.
Wade Ross, moderator of the St. Augustine Vagrant Watch Group Facebook page, said he routinely sees much of the same thing.
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While Ross said that panhandling on St. George Street might be slightly reduced, the issue seems to have spread elsewhere. and other problems remain.
“Things are looking pretty rough,” he said. “We’re counting campers in the 20s nightly (in) the past week or so. A lot of them are drinking, drunk, aggressively panhandling. ... Our results from the police vary from night to night.”
Panhandling, past and present
The city hired Kahn in 2017 after a spike in panhandling and vagrancy drew cries from business owners, residents and visitors for the city to do something. The increase came after a 2016 District Court case in Tampa found that panhandling is speech that’s protected by the First Amendment.
After that decision, St. Augustine stopped enforcing laws that restricted where people could panhandle over concern they could be challenged as unconstitutional. Some of the old rules placed a blanket ban on panhandling over parts of the city.
The city brought Kahn in to find a way to restrict panhandling on St. George Street and other parts of the city in a way that would likely hold up in court.
A big part of his work involved gathering testimony, stories and photos from witnesses. Testimony during the process detailed, among other things, major health risks of public urination and defecation.
The rules Kahn added focus on distance, not blanket bans. For instance, the ordinance prohibits panhandling within 20 feet of a business entrance or exit.
The City Commission enacted the ordinance in March and started enforcing the laws in early April.
Kahn said the ordinance protects the rights of visitors and everyone else while still leaving much of the city open to panhandling.
“The key to the ordinance is panhandlers’ rights, too,” he said.
And it hasn’t completely driven them from the tourist and business areas.
Fox said there are still some areas along St. George Street where panhandlers can set up.
Jack Williams was pretty sure he was sitting in one of them on Friday morning.
Shortly after being passed by a walking police officer, Williams, who was sitting along the wall just off the Hypolita Street intersection, said he has been given one ticket for holding or “flying” a sign.
That wasn’t too far from where he was Friday, he said. Though he said he paid the ticket, he maintained that the officer who wrote it was wrong because he didn’t properly measure the distance exactly from where Williams was sitting.
“He put on my ticket 19.6 feet,” he said.
That was six weeks ago, nearly two weeks after Williams said he moved here from Tennessee.
Disabled after being injured in a car wreck, Williams said he came here because he likes North Florida and knew the area had services that could help him get back on his feet.
Much of the money he makes panhandling, he said, he uses for living expenses like food in the hopes of being able to put his disability check in the bank. Some of the panhandling goes into the bank too, he said.
He estimated he makes more than $200 a week from panhandling and said he has to get up at 4 a.m. to make his way into the city to find a good and legal spot.
Problems persist
Dealing with other problems that many associate with homelessness remains a struggle for the city.
For instance, Fox said, the city’s camping ordinance, which prohibits sleeping in public spaces from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., is only enforceable as long as there are beds available at the St. Francis House on Washington Street.
While Fox commended the management there for expanding beyond their mission to provide the 12 beds that they do, it hardly puts a dent in the population.
“So we are only able to house 12 people a night, and the homeless problem is bigger than that,” he said.
Beyond that, he said he is hearing that the ones who are referred to St. Francis House for a bed are very seldom availing themselves of the other services that the shelter provides to help people transition out of homelessness.
That’s why Fox said it is important to understand that the recent ordinance is not a fix-all.
“This addresses panhandling,” he said, “but it is not affecting the homeless problem.”
A local business owner had a similar opinion about the city’s panhandling laws.
Len Weeks, a former city mayor who owns property downtown, said things are better with the ordinance in place, but they’re still bad.
“The amount of panhandling is less, but what they’ve done is they’ve scattered throughout other parts of downtown, too,” Weeks said.
As for other cities adopting a similar approach, Weeks said they should consider expanding the distance limits — like prohibiting panhandling within 40 or 50 feet of a business entrance instead of 20 feet.
“There’s too many areas where the ordinance doesn’t work,” he said.
One main effect of the ordinance is that it keeps beggars away from business entrances.
But people still spend extended periods of time on benches and in other public places, sleeping or banging on buckets to make music and asking for change, Weeks said.
Homelessness, panhandling and vagrancy — which he stressed are three separate categories and issues — are still a major concern for the business community, he said.
“It is an issue, and it’s a problem, and quite honestly, I don’t know what the answer is,” Weeks said.
Comments:
Edward Adelbert Slavin
1. No model of legal draftsmanship, the City's panhandling ordinance is probably unconstitutional because of its distance-based limitation on First Amendment protected activity, an approach struck down by the United States Supreme Court unanimously in McCullum v. Coakley, 573 U.S. ___ (2014), 134 S. Ct. 2518; 189 L. Ed. 2d 502; 2014 U.S. LEXIS 4499. That case struck down a Massachusetts law that set a 35 foot buffer zone around abortion clinics, even though it was facially neutral.
2. Mr. Michael Kahn is a conman who is a member of the Republican National Lawyers Association and solicits business from governments, like Kansas conman Kris Kobach (if that's his real name). Conman Kahn wrote City ordinances that resulted in banning artists and musicians from St. George Street. Eliminating the artists and musicians helped destroy the ambience of St. George Street, opening the street to panhandlers. It was a conflict of interest to hire this conman to solve the problem that his own ordinance helped create. Now he's conning other cities.
3. I hope that an aggrieved citizen sues and wins damages, injunctive relief and attorney fees against some or all of these cities for violating the First and Ninth Amendments. Enough messing with civil and constitutional rights in St. Augustine, Florida at the behest of Len Weeks and Joe Boles and other bullies.
4. The City could have adopted an aggressive panhandling ordinance without a distance limitation. It NEVER discussed my concerns about McCullum v. Coakley, 2017-2018. Kahn and the City Attorney were unjust stewards of civil rights on this one, and the ordinance don't deserve praise or emulation.
5. Once again, the Record has let its readers down, without research on constitutional rights.
6. This ordinance stinks on ice. « less
1
0
Edward Adelbert Slavin
Our City's patron, Saint Augustine, said, "An unjust law is no law at all."
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