Most street solicitors arouse feelings of pity rather than peril, in our experience. Some may annoy, or even amuse with creative spiels, but alarming aggression seems rarer.
Still, a Republican state representative from. . . wait for it . . . Birmingham thinks there ought to be a fine for pushy panhandlers who make pedestrians feel intimidated.
Rep. Mike McCready wants cities to be able to punish men and women begging too aggressively. "Panhandlers who use overbearing or intimidating tactics when soliciting for money could face a $100 civil fine" under a bill he introduced, Jack Spencer writes at Capitol Confidential, a blog of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
Rep. Mike McCready: "In Birmingham, we’re having an almost epidemic problem with panhandlers."
Spencer quotes the suburban lawmaker on this clear and present danger, which McCready also describes in a video below:
"Raising awareness of this problem was one of the primary purposes for introducing this legislation. In Birmingham, we’re having an almost epidemic problem with panhandlers. A lot of these people are addicted to drugs like heroin or cocaine. They do need help, but giving them money to feed their habit isn’t helping them. It would help them more to give them some food, like maybe a granola bar.”
“To stand in a public place and panhandle is one thing. . . . But when the panhandlers do things like go right to the car of a person who is either attempting to get in or get out; follow persons back to their cars; bang on their car windows; or take other aggressive action, it intimidates some people."
Honestly now, has anything like that ever happened to you? (Us neither.)
And how about the hyperbole of "an almost epidemic problem" and the condescension of "give them . . . a granola bar." Is this guy the Donald Trump of Oakland County?
McCready, a second-term representative who describes himself as conservative, fights back with the Aggressive Solicitation Prohibition Act. "The House Criminal Justice Committee has held a hearing on the bill," Spencer reports. "No vote was taken."
Rep. Vanessa Guerra, D-Saginaw, the ranking Democrat on the House Criminal Justice Committee, said there are several reasons for opposing House Bill 5103.
“I think there are a lot of problems with this legislation,” Guerra said. “First, I think there are existing laws on the books that could be applied to some these situations, Also, we already know the courts struck down the [Michigan] law against panhandling and there have been other federal court rulings against similar attempts to outlaw aggressive panhandling.”
“I also have to question why we’re pushing a bill like this one forward,” Guerra continued. “Not only is it unlikely to be upheld by the courts; but even if it were, what we’d be doing is fining people who don’t have money in the first place. When they couldn’t pay their fine, we’d be putting them in the county jail at a cost to the taxpayers. There are a lot of more pressing things the Legislature ought to be doing right now, like dealing with the (Detroit schools) crisis.”
The sponsor tells why he's pushing the bill In this Michigan House Republicans' video:
