Seattle City Councilmember Bruce Harrell

…the recent ordinance known as the “Aggressive Panhandling” law was not the answer. As you may recall, the City Council narrowly passed the Aggressive Panhandling law 5-4, but it was vetoed by Mayor McGinn and failed 4-4 when the Council re-visited the legislation. Many of my friends and supporters believed this law symbolized a much needed step toward improving some of the deplorable conditions affecting downtown Seattle and other neighborhood business areas. The proposed law took unlawful conduct (panhandling by use of harassment or intimidation) and allowed police to issue a citation, up to $50.00, to discourage the unlawful behavior. The goal was to clean up critical areas of our city and re-set community norms.

Supporters of the new Aggressive Panhandling law believed the new law would give the police an additional tool of enforcement. They argued that the existing criminal law was not effective and a civil citation scheme could re-set community norms by signaling a change to the business areas that have been neglected.

I was unsupportive of the proposed law because the data and the actual experiences in other cities do not support those conclusions about the Aggressive Panhandling law; there is no data to support the conclusion that a ticket scheme “re-sets” community norms. To the contrary, it is clear what actually re-sets community norms and improves public safety: deliberate, assertive and consistent enforcement of existing criminal laws.

Seattle currently has a criminal law (Ordinance 117104) that prohibits aggressive begging and intimidation when a person asks for money, whether the panhandling occurs at an ATM, parking station or a sidewalk. If done aggressively and is intimidating to a reasonable person, it is a crime. When police have charged people under this law, prosecutions have been upheld and the law was determined to be constitutional. There is no legal requirement that the victim be present, for example, in the case of a tourist. The argument that the criminal law was defective or ambiguous is not valid. That law is very clear. Aggressive Begging was drafted by lawyers; approved by the City Council; signed by the Mayor; and, has worked in the courts, when it was applied.

Supporters of the Aggressive Panhandling law cite Tacoma as an example of what works. I agree. Tacoma does not have a citation scheme to address aggressive panhandling, but a well-defined and well-enforced criminal ordinance.

Under the proposed Aggressive Panhandling law, in order to issue a citation, the Police Officer must witness the intimidation; he or she must be physically present. I posed the question, “If the Police Officer needs to be physically present to witness the aggressive panhandling to issue a ticket, wouldn’t it make better sense to have the person who is committing the misconduct to be charged with a crime instead of a ticket, particularly when the conduct is egregious such as unlawful intimidation?” This way the officer would not have to be present, the victim could report the crime, and the perpetrator could be apprehended and taken into custody.

A ticket would not have the effect of re-setting a community norm but, in contrast, would enable the misconduct by suggesting that it only rises to the level of a ticket which they would most likely not pay anyway.

A leading expert in this field, author Mark Kleiman would agree. He cites, for example, the street disorder in New York. New York tried a citation scheme for the people washing windows for money and for the people violating the law by jumping subway turnstiles. The infraction schemes did nothing to re-set community norms or improve the conditions and in fact, oftentimes the citations were tossed on the ground. Moreover, Police Officers did not even believe issuing the tickets were a good use of their time, given the more serious crimes that were taking place.

That is my point. We spent a significant amount of time focusing on the handful of people who may aggressively panhandle (when, in fact, we have a law that addresses that conduct) and we have ignored the open air drug dealing and thug-like behavior taking place every single day on the street corners in question. These sort of crimes should be our focus.

Hundreds, if not over one thousand, Seattle residents contacted my office by phone and email. I have heard their concerns, comments, and suggestions for a better Seattle. Many talked about the costs and the gains on this issue, but now demand legislative action.

To that end, I have proposed the following:

1. We should promote legislation in terms of what we are trying to establish and what we are trying to create, not who we are trying to target. This is not against “Aggressive Panhandlers” but legislation intended to create “Safer Streets” or this is a “Vibrant Downtown” law. Our intent is not to victimize the homeless and downtrodden but to build a vibrant downtown. This law was not deployed in this manner.

2. We should negotiate with the Mayor the specific number of police we want deployed in the troubled areas; the names of officers, their hours, dates of deployment and their specific training. This is specialized work and we currently we only have a limited number of officers in some of the worse areas. Based on that SPECIFIC PLAN which the Mayor can promote, I would suggest we work on the most important issues FIRST: drug trafficking and dangerous behavior. Are we really to believe that it is the handful of aggressive panhandlers in the downtown area that is causing the problem? That huge disconnect in how this legislation was promoted was why it was so troublesome to me. The lobbyists against the legislation rightfully saw this disconnect and they were right. The Council should adopt a resolution that the Executive agrees with and then the endorsed plan should equate to an executive order to the Mayor’s subordinate, the Chief of Police. In 1994, Mayor Rice signed Ordinance 117104, the Aggressive Begging law. He then was capable of directing his Chief of Police to enforce it. The City Attorney was on board. In Tacoma, Chapter 8.13 makes Aggressive Solicitation a Crime. The Executive supports it. Rather than a “message”, we need implementation. This was not deployed in that manner.

3. We need to work with the ACLU and the Human Rights Commission to alert them that a focused, assertive approach to clean up downtown is coming. This is not surprise work, but work clearly intended to attack our most serious, illegal conduct. The King County Prosecutor will be involved in this operation with our Police department. The defenders will be ready and staffed to protect the rights of the accused. Our City Attorney will also support these policing efforts and will make sure they are ready to support.

4. We know who the panhandlers are and where they panhandle. We have identified the 27 of them by name and description. Following the New York Times Square model, we should assign each one a case worker and work to diligently get them off the street or, at a minimum, train them to act peacefully. This is a focused, strategic effort to get them off the street. The city invests a lot of money in these areas and we should demand that level of accountability.

5. We should produce (through video), a complete picture of the crimes that are being openly committed. We should have footage to document this reality. We should capture how we implement the police plan and demonstrate how we have improved the conditions after the work is completed. This will establish a record that there was a problem; our approach in dealing with it was reasonable and calculated; and this approach can withstand legal or third- party scrutiny.

I remain fully committed to keeping Seattle safe. It alarms me to see areas of our town — where I walked peacefully as a child 40 years ago — taken over by folks who have little regard for public safety. This is unacceptable, as are laws which only dance around the real issue.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS