Political activist/consultant/sign maker Richard Salzman (above right) filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court yesterday against the City of Arcata, claiming that the liberal mecca’s panhandling ordinance is unconstitutional.
Ordinance no. 1399, which narrowly passed the Arcata City Council last March, made it illegal to panhandle “in an aggresive manner.” It also prohibits panhandling in certain geographic regions. For example, you can’t beg for money within 20 feet of any of the followig: ATMs, check-cashing businesses, entrances to stores, restaurants or bars, bus stops, foot bridges and intersections.
Salzman has no beef with the ban on aggressive panhandling, but he claims that those spacial restrictions violate the First Amendment. In March of this year the Arcata City Council refused to back down in the face of Salzman’s threats of litigation; with a 4-1 vote the council decided not to amend the ordinance.
In his complaint Salzman claims that “the ordinance was passed for the unlawful purpose of driving out the homeless population … and the City unlawfully singles out the homeless for discriminatory treatment.”
Read the full complaint here.
This article appears in Summer of Fun! 2011.
Richard Salzman is a patriot. Far more important, he’s a mensch.
I must say that the most damaging blight on Arcata I have seen in my short time here is the overwhelmingly aggressive, drunk and drug addled transients who come here with the sole intent and purpose of begging on Arcata streets.
Arcata has become a marked destination for panhandling–and around that, even more so than the marijuana trade, has risen violent crime and a general feeling of fear among the locals. Just try walking on the plaza after dark… I’m not a small guy, and I get worried most times.
Even if Ord.1399 isn’t the right answer, something must be done to curb this tide.
We’re not talking about families or individuals who have lost their homes due to the financial crash–these people intentionally recreate themselves into violent, aggressive, dirty, anti-community, anti-social miscreants for the sole purpose of living without jobs and feeding their addictions on the coins and dollars of productive members of our society.
That describes some, but certainly not ALL panhandlers. Unfortunately, Arcata’s overreaching, free-speech-stomping ordinance throws desperately poor and homeless people into the same category as obnoxious moochers, and punishes the truly needy right along with the lazy freeloaders.
Pleaase note: Salzman’s lawsuit does NOT call for the ban on “aggressive” panhandling behavior to be struck down. It just asks that the rest of the ordinance — which would, in effect, ban even NON-aggressive panhandling — should be struck down.
The fact that the Arcata City Council has insisted on retaining the whole ordinance, even the parts that have nothing to do with any aggressive behavior, suggests that the true purpose of the ordinance is to drive away not just obnoxious moochers, but also poor and homeless folks.
In essence, they’re using your outrage about obnoxious moochers and lazy freeloaders as a cover for their campaign to push poor and homeless folks out of town (or at least out of sight), where we don’t have to think about them or deal with them. So it’s really sickeningly cynical little political bait-and-switch by the City Council. Don’t fall for it.
A “mensach
‘ does not write letters under pretence.
Poor Brian, he was so deeply wounded by Mr. Salzman’s letters, it still hurts.
Brian’s typo is freudian…his own “man sack” is visibly absent.
FYI, from the Wikipedia:
Vagrancy in US law
In colonial America, if a person wandered into a town and did not find work, he/she was told to leave town or be prosecuted. In the U.S., vagrancy laws were vague and covered a wide range of activities and crimes associated with vagrants, such as loitering, prostitution, drunkenness, and associating with known criminals. Under the vagrancy laws, police arrested people who were suspected of crime, but who had not committed a crime. Eventually, punishments were changed to a fine, or several months in jail.
After the U.S. Civil War, the South passed Black Codes, laws that tried to control freed black slaves. Vagrancy laws were included in these codes. Homeless unemployed black Americans were arrested and fined as vagrants. Usually, the person could not afford the fine, and so was sent to county labor or hired out to a private employer.
In the U.S. of the 1960s, vagrancy laws were found to be too broad and vague, and in violation of the due process requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as citizens were not informed of which behaviors were illegal. Police had too much power in deciding whether or not to arrest someone. Vagrancy laws could no longer violate Freedom of Speech, such as when police use them against political demonstrators and unpopular groups. U.S. vagrancy laws became clearer, narrower, and more defined. Since then, the status of being a vagrant is punished by the vagrancy laws, while other actions are punished under other laws.
In Papachristou v. Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156 (1972), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Florida vagrancy law was unconstitutional because it was too vague to be understood.
Nevertheless, new local laws in the U.S. have been passed to criminalize aggressive panhandling activities by vagrants.[7][8] In recent years, there has been an increase in laws criminalizing vagrancy and related activities in the United States – see 2009 Homes Not Handcuffs – some under the rubric of sit-lie ordinances.
In the U.S., some local officials encourage vagrants to move away instead of arresting them. The word vagrant has been replaced by homeless person. Prosecutions for vagrancy are rare, being replaced by prosecutions for specific offenses such as loitering.
[edit]
That’s all you got….so writing fake letters to the editor is ok with you? What if Rob Arkley had done that?…. BY HA @ 10:37am…..is that you Salzman? Sounds like something you would say, using a different name of course.
“That’s all you got…”
No it’s not, but an anonymous commenter accusing another anonymous commenter of possibly being someone else is really stupid.
Salzman is pathetic
My name is Brian Paul Connors… and you did not answer my question Joel Mielke.
Your guess is as good as mine.
So that was all you had.. lol
I’m not sure which question you were referring to, but I get your obtuse point that you don’t like Mr. Salzman. Do you always offer up such keen insights in these discussions?
The bums in arcata know better than to approach me-However-have had to intercede when aggresive bums get in young mothers’ faces and crowd the kids-
Here is the question.Do you think it ok to write fake letters to the editor? If you are not sure what i’m talking about ask Hank Sims
Ask Ben Franklin:
http://www.pbs.org/benfranklin/l3_wit_name.html
I reside in downtown in a fairly busy area of Arcata. The other day, I step out onto my porch to check on something I left out there to air dry (no not herb). I heard commotion in the alley way prior, and upon further investigation and after making myself visible, I’m at first acknowledged by a group of apparent travelers sitting across from my apartment in a mid-smoke session. I tell them to please pick up any cigarette butts they may be possibly smoking off of as a courtesy. All members turn to one another, then one speaks up then then gives me lip: “I’m not smoking a cigarette… Do you see a cigarette?!” I repeat myself to make it clear not to leave any trash behind and to be respectful. The same person gets lippy and begins to verbally assault me. I tell him if he continues, that I will call the police. Then one of the other members asks: “Hey man, at least can you kick down some change?”
I have no problem with travelers, as I have known many myself. At times I have been close to homelessness also. I respect that some people are simply down on their luck or have issues that manifest themselves in other ways such as use of drugs, crime, and or refusal to look for work. I have a close friend who is currently in this position. My problem is that those transients who have come to Arcata in recent years for whatever reason — whether it is for 4/20, services, or rumor — have become aggressively prudent in their attempts to survive up here. I do not speak to many of these people for fear of retaliation (I have been followed home on more than one occasion). Signs are one thing. I could care less if Big Al stands on the corner wasting his day holding a sign to no end — it’s his life, not mine. But I do not appreciate being harassed repeatedly, regardless of the reason (i.e. change, food, etc.), especially outside my own home!
Now, I used to live in a major city so Arcata is a cake-walk compared to my experiences there. I’m not a big fan of Salzman nor am I of many of the regional politicos as of late but to be upfront, when I use my bank’s ATM I do not want to feel threatened by the possibility of robbery nor do I wish to be asked (again) once I leave an establishment whether I have any spare change or not. I don’t think this ordinance is the end-all solution but it at least is an attempt to try to help protect the citizens of Arcata and further address a problem that has been ongoing for many years.
Salzman, I ask of you: Would you like to be harassed outside your very own home while checking your mail or simply walking out your porch? I bet you wouldn’t.
According to the story on Heraldo:
the section of the ordinance against “aggressive panhandling,” including blocking one’s path, any physical contact or shouting, was left unchallenged by this legal action.
http://humboldtherald.wordpress.com/2011/05/20/salzman-sues-arcata/
It sounds like defending the right to just hold up a sign (free speech) was the whole point of the lawsuit.
Do none of you see that this is an economic housing problem, homeless people do not choose to be homeless, rather it is the opposite, they have no choice.
I’m speaking from experience and academically. There has to this day not been a cure for poverty and as long as there is prejudice, greed and a whole host of other social sins we will continue seeing homeless people.
If you don’t like seeing people wasting away in the throws of addictions and depravity on your streets then put together affordable housing so that they can suffer out of your eyesight!!! A TENT IS AFFORDABLE HOUSING!