ACTION REQUESTED:
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Communication from the City Manager and Interim Corporation Counsel with a Request to RECEIVE and FILE a DISCUSSION on PANHANDLING.
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BACKGROUND: On October 7, 2003 the City adopted Ordinance No. 15537 amending its regulation of panhandling. It generally defined panhandling as "any solicitation made in person upon any street, public way, public place or park in the city, in which a person requests an immediate donation of money or other gratuity from another person and includes but is not limited to seeking donations." It did not include the act of passively standing with a sign. It also excluded the performance of music, singing or street performance. It defined aggressive panhandling as someone who is panhandling and touches another person, while in line waiting to be admitted to a business, blocking the path of another person or blocking an entrance to a building, following a person, using profane or abusive language or panhandling in a group of two or more persons. Panhandling was prohibited after sunset and before sunrise and at certain locations in the city including bus stops, in a sidewalk cafe or within 20' of an ATM machine.
The City's panhandling ordinance excluded individuals who were passively standing with a sign from the definition of panhandling. In 2015, the Supreme Court changed the scope of municipal sign regulation which affected how Illinois courts ruled on existing panhandling ordinances. Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 576 U.S. 155 (2015).
Between 2015 and 2017 the Seventh Circuit Court of Appels issued a series of opinions in Norton v. City of Springfield, 2018 WL 3964800 (C.D. 11. 2018). Norton involved a challenge to Springfield's panhandling ordinance, which prohibited panhandling in the downtown historic district (less than 2% of the City's area but containing principal shopping, entertainment and government areas). The ordinance defined "panhandling" as "an oral request for an immediate donation of money." ...
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