SF council tightens panhandling ordinance

SANTA FE —The Santa Fe City Council has approved an amendment to a city ordinance that changes the definition of panhandling to place new restrictions on nonvocal or “passive” solicitations.

Now, police have the authority to issue citations to aggressive panhandlers who follow people, block their path or use threatening language. The measure also bans panhandlers from soliciting from medians, at bus stops, on buses, near automatic teller machines, banks and schools.

Panhandling after dark in the downtown Capitol Business District is also prohibited.

The ordinance previously stated that “the act of passively standing or sitting, with a sign or other indication that a donation is being sought without vocal request, other than in response to an inquiry by another person” should not be subject to panhandling restrictions. That language has now been removed.

“It’s important to point out the ordinance permits panhandling,” said Alfred Walker, assistant city attorney. “It (now) makes no distinction between passive and active panhandlers.”

The amendment expands the ordinance to include written and other nonverbal solicitations, such as holding up a sign asking for help, in rules that limit how and where panhandling can take place.

The changes also prohibit panhandling within 15 feet of the entrance or exit to a public transportation facility and in off-street parking lots and structures, additions that were taken from Albuquerque’s panhandling ordinance.

An ordinance approved by the City Council in December 2010 replaced a panhandling ban that had been on the books for years that legal experts claimed was unconstitutional. In fact, earlier this year the New Mexico Court of Appeals ruled that an ordinance in Portales, identical to Santa Fe’s old ordinance, was indeed unconstitutional.

Under the amendment recently adopted, the new restrictions now would apply to people holding up signs or otherwise “passively” soliciting passersby.