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Garret Moffett calls downtown panhandling a
“problem of epidemic proportion.”
Moffett, owner of Springfield Walks, says that
participants in his guided tours are often hit up for money five or six
times, leading to safety and harassment issues. “For me, specifically, panhandlers were coming
up before, after, and during the tours, asking for money,” he says.
“It gives people a bad image of Springfield — people come to
town to visit and we appear to be a town of beggars.”
Moffett joins other downtown business owners in
supporting a newly approved city ordinance that fully prohibits panhandling
in an area that includes such popular landmarks as the Capitol building and
Old State Capitol on the west and the Lincoln Home National Historic Site
on the east. The 24-hour off-limits area also includes the hospital
district and the city’s train station.
Ward 5 Ald. Sam Cahnman sponsored the new ordinance,
which subjects offenders to penalties of $25 to $100 or eight to 40 hours
of community service. He says that the goal of the law is to reduce the
incidence of panhandling in the downtown area, not to push panhandlers into
other areas of the city, as some aldermen feared. “The downtown area is unique because there are
large numbers of people who congregate there, so the panhandlers will
naturally be attracted to those areas,” Cahnman says.
“Although it could possibly cause some of them
to move to other areas, it’s not real likely, because the areas on
the boundaries are not high-traffic areas,” he says. The city’s old ordinance prohibited panhandling
from sunset to sunrise, as well as aggressive panhandling, throughout the
city.
It was often difficult for police officers to enforce
the old ordinance, Moffett says, but it seems that their task will become
easier with Cahnman’s stricter terms. “In the last month or so, the Springfield Police
Department has been extremely helpful in putting the word out that this
behavior is not acceptable,” Moffett says. “Now that the
ordinance is in place, cops have the tools to enforce the law.”
Cahnman says that police officers will initially issue
warnings but will work to ticket and prosecute repeat offenders. He hopes
that this will help send the message that the city will not tolerate
panhandling.
Contact Amanda Robert at arobert@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Aug 9-15, 2007.
