In a blog post published this week, ACLU-VT staff attorney Jay Diaz reviewed ordinances in several Vermont towns, and compared them to laws in other states that have been overturned by courts.
Several federal courts in recent months have challenged municipal ordinances in other parts of the country that restrict “aggressive panhandling.”
In October, a district court in Massachusetts struck down a panhandling law in Lowell saying that it violated the First Amendment. A similar law in Grand Junction, Colorado, was overturned by a court, which wrote that the laws “prohibit protected speech that poses no threat to public safety.”
Four Vermont municipalities have similar laws to ones that were overturned in other states, according to Diaz. He pointed to ordinances in Burlington, Barre, Bennington and Rutland Town.
Diaz said Thursday that anti-panhandling ordinances can be broader in scope than authors intend. The court decisions raised issues about whether the laws conflict with the First Amendment.
“While these ordinances are designed with a particular population in mind, they can be broader than they appear,” Diaz said.
Charities soliciting donations, for example, could be swept in under these ordinances, he said.
Diaz linked panhandling to broader issues of homelessness in Vermont. According to statistics from the state’s Emergency Solutions Grant’s program, 4,303 Vermonters utilized some type of publicly funded shelter in fiscal year 2015 — the highest number since 2002.
“It seems like a symptom of a larger problem,” Diaz said. “The best way for us to help with the problems associated with panhandling is to help the panhandlers.”
The Rutland Town ordinance prohibits panhandling within 15 feet of banks and ATMs, handicap parking spaces, telephone booths, and other locations. It could carry a fee ranging from $50 to $500.
John Paul Faignant, a member of the Rutland Town select board, said that when the town’s anti-panhandling ordinance was drafted, the select board directed the town attorney to be “the least restrictive ordinance possible.”
Faignant said the ordinance targets people who pester others repeatedly and aggressively for donations.
“It gives the officers a basis to ask the person to discontinue their behavior,” Faignant said, but noted that it is not treated as an entrance point into the criminal justice system.
Faignant, an attorney, said that he is “in sync” with the ACLU’s concerns about limitations on free speech, and that the ordinance was drafted with the aim of being as liberal as possible.
“Even the ACLU would acknowledge there are limits on speech,” Faignant said.
