RC Blog

Burgess Lied.  The Anti-Panhandler Safety Bubble Lives.

posted by Tim Harris on Friday, March 12 at 1:52am

At last Tuesday’s Seattle Office of Human Rights forum to discuss Seattle’s new panhandling ordinance, I challenged Councilmember Tim Burgess to meaningfully back up his claim that there is no 15’ “safety bubble” that follows anyone engaged in a parking or ATM transaction, thus turning pretty much any commercial district into a dynamic no-go zone for solicitors of any sort, including Real Change vendors.

Burgess replied unequivocally.  The ordinance language, he said, was revisited last week and changed.  “There is no safety bubble,” he stoutly declared.

I checked. The safety bubble lives.  I see it.  Our lawyer friends see it.  And yet, Burgess denies its existence.  The law, he says, and the 15’ bubble, applies only to transactions immediately conducted at a parking station or an ATM, and does not travel with the person.  He’s lying.

Here’s the most current version of the relevant section of the ordinance.

4. “Aggressive solicitation” means the act of engaging in intimidating conduct towards another person in a public place when such conduct is accompanied by an act of solicitation. The mere act of solicitation without intimidation is not aggressive solicitation. Aggressive solicitation includes but is not limited to:
a. intentionally blocking or interfering with a person by any means while making a solicitation, including unreasonably causing the person to take evasive action to avoid physical contact; 
b. intentionally using physical gestures or profane or abusive language that would cause fear or alarm to a reasonable person while making a solicitation;
c. repeatedly soliciting a person who has given a negative response to a solicitation while remaining within 15 feet of the person;
d. following a person who has given a negative response to a solicitation while repeatedly soliciting the person;
e. providing or delivering, or attempting to provide or deliver, unrequested or unsolicited services prior to or without the consent of the person to whom the service is provided; or
f. soliciting from within 15 feet any person who is using an automated teller machine (ATM) or a public or private parking pay station. For purposes of this paragraph, a person is using an ATM or parking pay station if the person:
i. is waiting in line for an ATM or parking pay station; or
ii. is conducting a transaction on an ATM or at a parking pay station; or
iii. immediately before or after conducting a transaction at an ATM or parking pay station, is handling in plain view any money, bank card, receipt, check or other document related to the transaction.

Real Change reporter Cyd Gillis had an email exchange on this with Nate Dozier, Burgess’ legislative assistant, last week.  When she pressed him on the issue of whether the safety zone extends from the person or the machine, here’s what he said.

“Well my understanding of the way it’s now written is the 15 foot reference point is the person, not the machine.  I think you could still not solicit from someone who is handling money or a parking sticker “immediately before or after” her or his transaction as that is part of the definition of “using.” I think your question might get into the definition of “immediately,” which I think leaves a pretty narrow window.”

This strikes me as a calculated misdirect.  The safety bubble does not depend, as he says, upon some lawyerly distinction regarding the word “immediately.”  The safety bubble exists in subparagraph f.iii as a whole, which says that so long as any document related to the transaction remains in one’s hand, that person constitutes a mobile no solicitation zone. 

As to the word “immediately,” it obviously means more than 15’ after the center of the safety bubble leaves the parking meter or ATM, or there would be no reason for this clause at all.

To illustrate, say someone uses the Bank of America ATM at Westlake Center, exits right and walks, cash in hand, past the street kids that hang out near the sculpture on the way to the Starbucks across the street.. A kid asks for money.  Does s/he get a ticket?  Probably depends.  That’s a bad law.

So, why the attachment to the safety bubble?  Is it really worth all the obfuscation and legal vulnerability to the ordinance?

You’ll have to ask Councilmember Burgess, but here’s my best guess.  The safety bubble makes the possible application of the ordinance nearly universal.  Each of the 25 known panhandlers on the Downtown Seattle Association’s hit list, and anyone else that law enforcement cares to target, could easily be found in violation and ticketed.  Repeatedly.  Those tickets would default to misdemeanor warrants.  There would be arrests, court appearances, and choices to be made.

The bubble creates options.

Just four of the panhandlers on the DSA list were identified by DSA’s own ambassadors as “aggressive.”  With this new “tool,” that won’t matter.  Any act of solicitation, when crossed with the safety bubble, becomes a civil infraction.

The ACLU and others are clear that this legislation creates intolerably broad restrictions upon free speech that will not withstand constitutional challenge.  Burgess says the ordinance is extremely narrow and targets very specific uncivil behaviors. 

My money’s on the ACLU.

Our tax dollars, however, rest with the city, which is too bad. Burgess’ response in a meeting last week to the question of whether litigation to defend bad law is a good use of city money was to say that the city already has a legal fund set aside for these exigencies, so, no problem.

It’s the classic bureaucrat’s dodge.  “The money I want to spend on a stupid thing, being in that pile rather than this one, doesn’t really count.”  It does.  City dollars are city dollars.

This is bad law that will not, as written, withstand constitutional challenge.  Burgess’ lawyers from the city think it will.  The team of legal support and those who analyze laws like this regularly say they’re wrong. 

There will be a legal challenge to this law whether the moving safety bubble lives on or not, but Tim Burgess should make good on his word.  If, as he said in a televised public forum, the bubble does not exist as a matter of legislative intent, he needs to make it go away.  Immediately.

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Comments

Tim Burgess just wants us to shut up and go away so he can do what he wants with no interference from mere citizens.
I’m not good at that. Just ask the House and Senate Ways and Means Committees.

Linde Knighton | submitted on 03/12/2010, 5:36pm

Tacoma’s law is far stricter than Seattle’s and it has stood up to legal scrutiny.

I’m tired of being harassed when I’m getting my wallet out and think this change is long overdue. The Burgess plan also includes additional money for homeless shelters and support services so I think its a good plan on balance.

Crash Bandicoot | submitted on 03/13/2010, 12:46pm

There is no money for additional shelter and services.  There is only unfunded implied intention.  That won’t even buy you a cup of coffee.  I invite you to try.

Tim Harris | submitted on 03/13/2010, 1:29pm

Compassion, Empathy,  Generosity, a tangible effort to alleviate the suffering of our homeless population should be a prerequisite of any city official elected into office.  Seattle has a long history of supporting green practices and professing to uphold politically correct values while treating our homeless population much like our government treated our
Native American population under the guise of Manifest Destiny.

The city of Seattle already has laws against aggressive panhandling.  Public Space should be shared by the “haves” and ” have nots”.  All classes of our society should be free to exercise their civil rights.

Seattle suffers more than its share of segregation. ( You want your child in a school in Queen Anne or White Center?) This law is criminal.

We should coalesce our energy and systematically boycott the supporters of this law!

mari salinas | submitted on 03/26/2010, 11:39am

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