by Anna Oakes
Staff Writer
Boone Town Council unanimously adopted a new panhandling ordinance
at their March 18 meeting.
A community task force was formed to look at panhandling problems,
and presented a revised ordinance to the town council for consideration.
Randy Feimster is the director of the Downtown Boone Development
Association (DBDA) and was a member of the task force.
“Everyone felt comfortable that … certainly begging
or panhandling is a protected constitutional right,” Feimster
said. “We realize that; it’s just the aggressiveness
that we were trying to address.”
Last September, the DBDA asked the town council to consider an ordinance
that would restrict aggressive panhandlers and solicitors as well
as public urination and the obstruction of sidewalks.
At that time, the council voted to form a task force representing
downtown merchants, local government, law enforcement, local social
organizations and Appalachian State University.
“We’re a tourist town – we rely a lot on the dollars
the tourist industry brings,” Feimster said. “We were
getting a number of complaints about tourists being harassed and
generally not feeling comfortable downtown, which is not a good
situation for a tourist industry.”
The enacted ordinance makes it unlawful to “engage in aggressive
begging, panhandling and soliciting within the corporate limits
of the town.”
Violators of the ordinance can potentially receive a citation with
a maximum $50 fine.
“The most effective way [to enforce this ordinance] would
be for us to watch,” Town of Boone Chief of Police Bill Post
said.
Appalachian State graduate student Ian Mance was a member of the
vagrancy task force.
The ordinance defines “aggressive” panhandling as the
use of intimidation, the threat of force, refusing to take no for
an answer and continued harassment to obtain money, Mance said.
Mance noted several differences between the ordinance adopted by
Town Council and the original draft ordinance written last fall.
The new ordinance includes a provision that officers must first
warn a person who is unintentionally obstructing pedestrian traffic
before giving them a citation, he said.
The original ordinance also outlawed panhandling within a 100-foot
radius of any ATM. This has been changed to within 50 visible feet,
Mance said.
In addition, a time frame was designated for “repeated”
requests for money.
Repeated requests within five minutes can be deemed aggressive,
he said.
“The new ordinance does give police the tool by which to deal
with aggressive panhandling,” Mance said. “However,
I would argue that aggressive panhandling was never truly a problem
in Boone to begin with.”
“The only reason we’re discussing this is because of
the personal insecurities of a handful of business owners trying
to use town council as a means to expel ‘non-desirables’
from the downtown district,” he said.
Mance said he feels the task force was partially successful. The
Town of Boone Police Department is putting together pamphlets informing
panhandlers of the new ordinance, their rights and agencies that
can help them, he said.
“In the end, the ordinance certainly does not take any rights
away from people, which was my main goal,” Mance said.
“We were definitely not looking for criminalizing the homeless
or anything like that,” Feimster said. “We certainly
were sympathetic to folks that legitimately needed help.”
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