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04-04-2018 11:47 AM |
The ordinance as described in the article seems fairly specific and makes it illegal for pedestrians to “stop, stand, or remain in raised traffic islands or medians, except when waiting to cross a roadway at the next signal or when traffic clears.” I’m not at all clear how this stops panhandling on a public street.
It seems specifically designed to stop people from panhandling on a raised median in the middle of traffic.
I know that a fundraiser for MDA is quoted in the article as fearing this will cause solicitations they conduct with help from the local fire department to drop but so long as the fundraiser (or panhandler) is on the sidewalk, it doesn’t seem to me they are impacted at all by the new ordinance.
30 days of warnings and education about the new law. After that, it’s a traffic citation. No one gets arrested.
This looks to be a narrow rule designed to alleviate a specific problem. I’m still not sure it’s a big enough issue that I would have worried about it enough to pass a new law. But I’d defer to local law enforcement who asked for it to solve what they saw as a public safety issue.
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