When it comes to the controversial issue of roadside panhandling, Tampa City Council is batting .500.
It did the prudent thing last week by declining to include a referendum on a panhandling ban for the city’s March 1 ballot. It overrode the arguments, which ranged from imminent danger to awful image, presented by a petition-drive organizer.
Not unlike “Don’t ask, don’t tell” or school integration, there are some issues, with emotional underpinnings and moral imperatives, that you don’t want to consign to the mosh pit of a winner-take-all plebiscite. Taking on people who panhandle isn’t akin to imposing a tax or amending a charter. This is about recessionary empathy for the less fortunate–in the context of public safety and common sense. It’s not a bumper sticker issue; nor is it appropriate fodder for the usual screechy partisans.
But the understandable non-scheduling of a referendum was offset by the council’s earlier abdication of responsibility by not acting on its own accord to pass an effective ordinance. As if requiring brightly-colored Home Depot vests for intersection and median solicitors was some kind of solution.
And that was before the Tampa panhandler numbers began ratcheting up in the aftermath of St. Petersburg enacting its ban on panhandling and roadside vending. So much so that Assistant Tampa Police Chief John Bennett now warns of incipient signs of “turf wars” at prime, high-traffic locales. And that was also before any research was done unearthing the reality that a number of the “homeless” were neither homeless nor unaggressive. Nor rap-sheet free.
Put it this way–and Hillsborough sheriff’s spokesman Larry McKinnon did: “If you roll down your window for a stranger, you expose yourself to danger. Drivers are just going to have to weigh that risk.” Oh.
But even if roadside and median solicitors all looked like a central casting call for a remake of “Father Knows Best,” the operative issue remains. Whether it’s newspaper hawkers, charity solicitors or panhandlers. Whether they’re carrying a cardboard sign or a firefighter’s boot.
These are not appropriate venues for transactions. Period. Whether it’s soliciting handouts, asking for charity donations or selling newspapers. The confluence of motor vehicles, distracted drivers, solicitors and traffic lights that persist in going from red to green are an unholy, unsafe alliance. Then add in increasing squatters’-rights issues and a higher incidence of the decorum-challenged.
There’s a reason why Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, not one given to alarmist rhetoric and insensitivity to the unfortunate, sees the need for a panhandler ban on city thoroughfares. “The situation has gotten out of control on our streets,” she has stated. More than once.
Ultimately, an incident will morph into an accident. Then will commence the condolences and the finger pointing and a commitment to fast-tracking an ordinance to prevent a reoccurrence. You’ll see the flowers in a median and be reminded.
So, why wait? Why wait for common sense to kick in?
As noted at the outset, this is a tricky, hybrid issue: At its emotional core, this is about helping those in need: those who live at the intersection of economic dynamics and societal subplots. Where life-isn’t-fair meets self-help onus. None among us can judge infallibly. People have a right to ask others for help. And to, in effect, assemble. And non-governmental entities with wherewithal have a conscience to answer to and charities to contribute to.
But where there are rights, regardless of need, there necessarily are responsibilities. Public safety trumps the exigencies surrounding street solicitations. It requires an ordinance–but not a vote.