Springfield panhandling ordinance in limbo after injunction

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- Arrests of aggressive Springfield panhandlers have ceased, and city leaders say there's little chance local restrictions on unwanted soliciting will survive after a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction against enforcing the 2-year-old ordinance.

The law, adopted in January 2014, was drafted at the request of a task force comprised of downtown business owners and other stakeholders. The measure prohibits verbal requests for money within 5 feet of a street or sidewalk or within 20 feet of a doorway or sidewalk cafe.

Bobby Honicutt, 61, filed a federal lawsuit in early December alleging the city's panhandling law has not been applied correctly.

The measure allows quietly seeking donations as long as panhandlers stay away from street medians, intersections and shoulders and do not block an entrance or obstruct pedestrian traffic, the Springfield News-Leader reported.

Honicutt -- who is being assisted by the ACLU of Missouri -- said he tried to abide by the law and panhandle passively but was threatened with a ticket by a Springfield police officer.

Tony Rothert, ACLU of Missouri's legal director, said flaws in the city's ordinance go deeper than inconsistent enforcement.

"It selects speech by its topic and makes it illegal based on what the person is saying," Rothert said. "It's a foundation of the First Amendment ... (that) government doesn't get to pick and choose who gets to speak based on the content of their speech."

Asking for money is no different than asking passers-by to vote for a particular political candidate or protesting some government policy, he said.

After a federal judge issued the injunction Dec. 16 prohibiting the city from enforcing the law, the city prosecutor's office dismissed all pending panhandling cases and declined to file any new ones.

"It wasn't thousands ... but I know we had a number of those cases," said Carl Yendes, the city's municipal prosecutor. "They range from situations occurring on sidewalks downtown to a lot of things going on at highway intersections."

City spokeswoman Cora Scott said the city council is expected to refer the panhandling issue to a committee that could begin trying to craft a new one that will pass legal muster. There appears to be little chance the current ordinance can be salvaged.

"We think that the case law has changed how cities can deal with panhandlers," said city attorney Dan Wichmer. Recent court decisions, including a U.S. Supreme Court opinion issued in June, "struck down the vast majority of our ordinance, if not all of it."

Information from: Springfield News-Leader, http://www.news-leader.com