Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 30, 1993 TAG: 9301300085
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
IS ROANOKE'S PANHANDLING LAW BEGGING TO BE CHALLENGED?
A 1956 city ordinance against public begging is unconstitutional, says the American Civil Liberties Union.
Amid the lunch-hour rush in Roanoke's Market Building, a disheveled little man with no legs rolled his wheelchair up to a table where a family of three was eating.
"He said he was going to [expletive] them up if they didn't give him some money," said Lylburn Ollie, a police officer who was standing nearby.
Mark Devoe Dunford, who was in court this week for violating a city ordinance that makes begging a crime, personifies the problem:
Do poor people have a constitutional right to ask for money in public, as civil libertarians and some homeless advocates say?
Or do laws like Roanoke's anti-begging ordinance stop the deadbeats and derelicts who shun homeless shelters for the streets, asking for your pocket change to finance their next pint of liquor?
That question has received little attention in Roanoke, where a 1956 ordinance has been used quietly and sparingly over the years to fine panhandlers up to a maximum of $250 for each offense.
But the law has been getting more use recently, after a group of merchants complained to police about beggars downtown.
In the past two months, police have made about 25 arrests on charges of soliciting for alms without a license, according to Maj. Don Shields of the Roanoke Police Department.
"These people create a perception of fear," Shields said.
Downtown shoppers and workers "are being approached by someone who is gruff, looks terrible and smells bad," he said. "They can be obnoxious, obscene and very aggressive."
Although no one has reported being physically harmed by a beggar, Shields said it's not uncommon for one to grab someone by the coat sleeve or follow them the length of a city block, repeatedly asking for a handout.
Not all beggars are as aggressive as Dunford, whose actions were described Thursday during a hearing in Roanoke General District Court.
But the ordinance makes no distinction between pushy and passive panhandling.
Section 28.1 of the Roanoke City Code states: "No person shall, on any public street or way or in any public park or other public place in the city, beg or solicit alms or charitable aid, unless such solicitation is made pursuant to a permit issued under article II of this chapter, or unless such solicitation is otherwise permitted by law."
That, says Kent Willis of the American Civil Liberties Union, is unconstitutional.
"Our position is that the First Amendment gives people the right to speak on public property, and that includes asking someone for money." Willis said.
When Richmond officials considered passing an anti-begging ordinance three years ago, the ACLU's threat of a lawsuit helped kill the proposal.
Why has no one challenged the Roanoke ordinance? Perhaps one reason is that the people charged with begging usually cannot afford an attorney.
In court this week, Dunford pleaded not guilty and asked for a court-appointed attorney. But because begging does not carry a potential jail sentence, his request was denied.
"They just violated my rights," Dunford grumbled as a sheriff's deputy wheeled him out of the courtroom.
A bad name
As director of development for the city Rescue Mission, Joy Sylvester-Johnson knows lots of poor people who are trying to better their lives.
Not one of them begs for money on the street, she said.
"They're giving the poor a bad name," Sylvester-Johnson said of the downtown beggars.
"Giving them a dollar or $5 is not going to solve the problem," she said. "It might make you feel better, but what you're really buying is five lottery tickets, a bottle of wine or a dose of crack.
"The reason we have a panhandling problem in Roanoke is because people continue to give them money."
The Rescue Mission prints coupons that people can give to panhandlers, entitling them to a hot meal and a bed at the shelter. Out of thousands of coupons that have been distributed in recent years, Sylvester-Johnson said, about 20 have been returned to the mission.
Of the dozen or so people recently arrested for panhandling, nearly all of them have records of being drunk in public and other crimes, authorities said.
Police hesitate to use the word "homeless" for a crowd that seems to prefer life on the streets.
"If they have legitimate needs, there are sources available to them through social services or other agencies," Shields said. "The people who are soliciting for money are doing it to support their abuse habits, whether it's drugs or alcohol."
Downtown Roanoke always has had a small but visible panhandling problem.
For some reason - some speculate it's the new influx of pedestrian traffic from the Dominion Tower and Norfolk Southern buildings - complaints recently have grown much louder.
Kim Kimbrough, executive director of Downtown Roanoke Inc., said a coalition has been formed to study the issue.
Although no one is suggesting that shoppers avoid downtown for fear of being accosted, the presence of beggars is "not conducive to promoting our downtown," Kimbrough said. "It's an annoyance."
As the group begins work with police and other agencies, an initial task will be to determine a profile of the typical street beggar.
"I don't think any of us want to come across as trying to crush these people, if they really need the help," he said.
But the concerns already have led to the largest number of panhandling arrests in recent years. In an undercover operation of sorts, plainclothes police officers blended into crowds of shoppers and downtown employees. When a beggar asked the wrong person for money, he was arrested on the spot.
Shields said some of them were carrying as much as $65 in small change - apparently the proceeds of the day's work.
Mac Doubles, an assistant commonwealth's attorney for the city, said authorities sometimes take that cash in an effort to make panhandling less profitable.
Nothing but harassment
At 9 a.m. Thursday, Roanoke General District Court was called to order with the usual assortment of accused prostitutes, drug dealers and thieves in attendance.
Mark Dunford parked his wheelchair on the front row. A plaid blanket covered the stumps of his legs, which he said were amputated years ago after he was severely burned in a Baltimore house fire.
When Dunford's case was called, the only witness to testify was Ollie, the police officer who arrested him twice.
Ollie said he saw Dunford approach two people Dec. 13 on the Market Square and ask for money. They said no and kept walking. "He then pursued them down the sidewalk in his wheelchair, cussing them out," Ollie testified. The second incident, in January, was in the Market Building restaurant area.
Dunford, 60, denied the cussing part. "All I heard in there was a bunch of lies," he said minutes later outside the courtroom.
As for the criminal charges of begging, "it's not a thing but harassment," he said. "I don't recall asking for a dime.
"They tell me to get off the market. . . . That's a violation of my constitutional rights."
But if the anti-begging law were to be tested, Dunford's case might not be the ideal one. Court records show he was arrested 55 times in 1992 - mostly for being drunk in public, but also on charges of trespassing, petty larceny and spitting on a police officer.
He is a regular fixture in downtown, both to the citizens who complain about his actions and to the police who haul him away.
The only address listed in his court records is 324 W. Campbell Ave. - the city jail. The rest of the time, Dunford says, he stays in homeless shelters at night and on the streets at day, living on government checks and handouts.
But as long as people like Dunford don't ask for money in a harassing way, the ACLU's Willis said, they should be allowed to beg "in the same way you would ask for directions or state a political opinion."
Some even say that a beggar's pleas are a legitimate commentary on the ills of society.
For people who might find the begging annoying, or for those who feel guilty for walking away, "the First Amendment gives people the right to ask for money in public, but it does not compel you to give them any," Willis said.
"The Constitution doesn't protect you from your own feelings."
Willis knew of no U.S. Supreme Court ruling that dealt definitively with begging as a free-speech right. But appellate courts in California and Florida have made such findings.
The Supreme Court last year upheld a New York solicitation ban, but only when the begging interfered with the flow of traffic inside the city's subways and airport terminals.
Constitutional issues aside, there's the practical question of what is accomplished by fining someone who begs for their money.
"Certainly fining somebody $100 for begging is not going to stop them; it will just give them more incentive to beg," said Roberta Bondurant, a former public defender in Roanoke and a member of the city's Poverty Task Force.
"It strikes me that if the authorities are finding a need to enforce the ordinance, it's an indication that homelessness and the need to beg is on the rise."
A place to stay
General District Judge John Apostolou has dealt with Dunford before. So when he was rolled back into the courtroom this week, the judge was ready with a plan.
Working with the Court-Community Corrections Program, Apostolou found a room for Dunford at a Roanoke adult home. He delayed a final ruling on the two panhandling charges to see how Dunford does under the supervised program.
"You'll have a home, a place to stay, three meals a day," Apostolou told him. "They'll give you a few dollars, but it won't be enough for your liquor.
"If you want a place to stay and die with some degree of dignity, you can take this offer. If you don't, we'll have to ship you away.
"I've done all I can, but I can't just let you die in the streets," Apostolou said. "Someone has got to take care of you, and I just did."
As a friend pushed him away from the courthouse and toward downtown, Dunford was asked if he will take the judge's offer.
"I don't know," he said. "It don't sound that good."