The Hillsborough County Committee on Panhandling Ordinance on Monday afternon held their fourth and final meeting as they debated whether to change their current ordinance, which unlike Tampa's, already bans panhandling on county street medians, but what recommendations will come out of it are unknown at this time, and won't be for another month.
The Committee, led by Hillsborough Administrator Mike Merrill, has heard from the public and a range of local stakeholders over the course of the past four months – Hillsborough Sheriff Deputies, officials with the Tampa Police Department, representatives of social service agencies, and other interested parties. But after Monday's meeting, Merrill said that though he was sympathetic to those who sell newspapers on county streets, he would seriously take the concerns of Hillsborough law enforcement officials that it was a public safety issue, and that a complete ban on everybody soliciting at street medians should remain.
The issue of panhandling in Tampa is the center of the debate – as the faltering economy , as well as the city of St. Petersburg banning soliciting from street corners, appears to have led to a noticeable increase of such soliciting in Tampa and Hillsborough, and the public and businesses in Tampa appear to be growing frustrated that city officials refuse to change their laws to make for a complete ban on such activities countywide.
At the County Center on Monday, James Lake, an attorney with the media law group of Thomas & LoCicero representing the Tampa Tribune, addressed the committee, forcefully arguing that those who sell newspapers on street medians, generally on Sundays, should not be penalized, since they are obeying the law.
He suggested that since the law will not allow for selective individuals (i.e., Shriners or firefighters) to collect money on medians, that newspaper hawkers, those soliciting for charity, and those soliciting simply for money pay a fee to attend a safety course, and then be officially sanctioned to solicit. That seemed to get some approval by some in the committee, but Merrill later said he wasn't sure that could work.
"It comes back to, does the training really matter if it's not just the person you're training, it's the drivers, it's other pedestrians, it's those who are not trained or certified that we also have to be thinking about," Merill said. "I just don't know at this point if it's advisable."
Another suggestion was to place boxes on city streets where people can donate money to the homeless instead of handing them dollars at intersections.
A representative for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, Susie Austin, called on the county to not crack down on Hillsborough County firefighters, who collect solicitations for MDA at street corners. However, as County Attorney Renee Lee mentioned towards the end of the meeting, current county law dictates that such soliciting currently is against the law, though she acknowledged it probably wasn't being enforced.
This article appears in Jan 6-12, 2011.