An ordinance backed by the Chicago Police Department aimed at deterring panhandlers was approved Tuesday by a City Council committee.
Two years after repealing an anti-panhandling ordinance after a constitutional challenge, the full City Council could take a final vote on the proposal at its meeting Wednesday.
Deputy Police Chief Ralph Chiczewski said the department deals with hundreds of complaints about aggressive panhandlers each week.
“It’s a definite problem throughout the whole city,” Chiczewski said. “This ordinance will help us address that quality-of-life issue.”
The proposal’s chief sponsor, Ald. Burton Natarus (42nd), said the effort strikes a balance between the rights of those who solicit passively and the feelings of those who are intimidated by rude and threatening panhandlers.
Panhandling would no longer be permitted within 10 feet of bus stops, ATMs or entrances to banks and currency exchanges; on public buses or trains; or at sidewalk cafes, restaurants or gas stations.
The ordinance also would bar panhandling “in a manner that a reasonable person would find intimidating,” including touching someone, blocking a pedestrian’s path or using “profane or abusive language” in reacting to rejection.
The ordinance sets fines of $50 for first and second offenses and $100 for subsequent violations.
Advocates for the poor and homeless criticized the proposal. The city’s Commission on Human Relations sent aldermen a letter urging them to reject the proposal.
“Laws already on the books deal with these issues,” said Clarence Wood, the commission’s chairman. “People ought not to be punished for being out of work and poor.”
Attorney Mark Weinberg filed suit in 2001, prompting the city to repeal a 1991 ordinance against panhandling.
That suit, filed on behalf of three clients and later certified as a class action, was settled last year at a cost to the city of almost $500,000.
The proposal pending before the council is modeled after a law in Indianapolis that was upheld in federal court.
Weinberg said Tuesday that Chicago’s newest effort against panhandling appears to have been written narrowly enough to withstand a challenge.
“I want to attack it, but I don’t see any way to attack it,” he said.
