Mark Lane: Court puts panhandlers back at Daytona intersections

As any local motorist will tell you, the panhandlers are back at area intersections.

Daytona Beach banned panhandling in selected areas, especially roadsides, back in 2019. That ban was challenged in federal court. Last August, a U.S. district judge temporarily blocked enforcement of the ordinance. And now, the court has voided the ordinance on First Amendment grounds.

Within days after the court had handed down the preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the ordinance, bearded guys with cardboard signs were back at the International Speedway Boulevard/Ridgewood Avenue intersection. Word on the street got out fast.

The city believed it was on sound legal ground when it passed the ordinance. This was not the usual blanket ban on panhandling like earlier anti-begging ordinances. The limits were based on documented safety concerns and economic impacts expressed by residents at public hearings. City legal advisors tried to balance free-speech rights against the right of residents and drivers to use their public spaces freely and safely.

But this was not enough. The court ruled that the city ban restricted speech based on its message, something courts view with the strictest scrutiny. “The challenged provisions are content-based because they apply only to solicitations for charitable donations,” the judge ruled.

More: Judge permanently blocks Daytona's anti-panhandling ordinance calling it unconstitutional

More: 'A horrible decision for us': Judge's ruling strikes down Daytona's panhandling ordinance

The rulings were a blow to the city’s attempts to control aggressive panhandling on Ridgewood Avenue, around the Boardwalk and Daytona Beach Pier, and on Downtown sidewalks. Before the crackdown, panhandlers sometimes had to take turns working both sides of the traffic at the ISB/Ridgewood Avenue intersection because too many would gather there at the same time during special events. More than once, I’ve sat in my car blocked at green lights at that intersection because panhandlers working in the street had stopped traffic.

Back when the ordinance was being drafted, Daytona Beach city commissioners heard a litany of complaints from people who felt bullied by aggressive panhandlers in streets and parking lots. They heard from business owners who lost customers because of aggressive panhandlers. And they heard from businesses that had to hire security guards because customers felt unsafe being pursued by aggressive panhandlers.

More than once, the police chief at the time, Craig Capri, warned that many intersection beggars were not desperate, unhoused people but “phonies and frauds.” He complained: “Some of these are professional con men ... They’re pulling up in cars when they’re doing it.” Which was true, but 80 percent of the people arrested under the ordinance were homeless.

Daytona Beach is hardly the only Florida city struggling to control roadway begging. Port Orange passed a similar ordinance in 2021. Seminole County has had an ordinance banning aggressive panhandling since 2015, but it’s now facing a court challenge. Jacksonville took a different approach and passed an ordinance last year requiring permits to solicit by the roadside. A homeless advocacy group is now challenging the ordinance in federal court, arguing the permit system is unworkable (which it seems to be) and tantamount to a ban.

A statewide anti-panhandling law was filed in the last legislative session but died quietly in committee and would not have survived court scrutiny if passed.

It’s alarming to think we might be stuck with a return to the pre-2019 situation. When walking to the pier meant working your way past aggressive panhandlers yelling at you. When major intersections were slowed by beggars working in the street. When eating at a sidewalk table downtown meant shooing away panhandlers. There is something about a tourist town that draws panhandlers, both professionals and the unhoused.

Daytona Beach will need to decide whether it’s worthwhile to appeal the ruling. In the meantime, it and other cities must develop new strategies for discouraging and policing aggressive panhandling so people can use their public spaces and roadways without being hassled.

In the meantime, motorists should shift their giving to real charities and stop paying people to stand in roadways with cardboard signs. They are only encouraging them to stay on the streets and, in many cases, subsidizing their drug and alcohol habits.

Roadside beggars wouldn’t be there if motorists didn’t make it pay and a simple change in motorists’ habits doesn’t require court approval.

Mark Lane is a News-Journal columnist. His email is mlanewrites@gmail.com .

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Mark Lane: Court puts panhandlers back at Daytona intersections