Penalties could soon grow tougher for panhandlers who get too pushy or aggressive while asking for cash from pedestrians in Atlanta.
City Councilman Michael Julian Bond is pushing a crackdown on aggressive panhandling and has introduced legislation that would mandate six months of jail time after a third conviction on charges of aggressive panhandling. Under current law, the penalties for a third conviction include a fine up to $1,000 and/or imprisonment not to exceed 30 days.
The legislation is geared toward helping Atlanta's tourism, convention and trade show industries, which bring millions of people and billions of dollars in spending to the region every year.
"I've just been inundated with calls from the downtown neighborhoods about this issue," said Bond, the chairman of the City Council's public safety and legal administration committee. "This is an attempt to get around an increasingly negative situation."
The proposal, which may be the subject of a public work session, has already attracted critics. In comments published by Atlanta Progressive News, Joe Beasley, the Southern regional director for the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, called it "stupid and regressive and racist."
Anita Beaty, executive director of the Task Force for the Homeless, characterized the proposed ordinance as punitive when most homeless people want help.
"It's insane. [The city is] relying on an incarceration system to provide things they're not providing now," Beaty told Atlanta Progressive News.
Bond said the measure is actually not aimed at most homeless people — only at the small number he said were threatening to passers-by.
"I'm not talking about someone who's down on their luck or homeless asking for a contribution or a sandwich," Bond said. "It's about people who harass."
One individual has been arrested more than 70 times on charges of aggressive panhandling, he said. Atlanta police told Channel 2 Action News that they have arrested 542 people on panhandling charges in the past year.
Bond compared the effort to Atlanta's crackdown on unsolicited window-washing in the 1990s.
"The sentence got longer, and the behavior went away," he said. "The idea is to discourage behavior, not lock people up."
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