ACLU Challenges Fort Collins' Panhandling Crackdown
DENVER (AP) - The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit challenging efforts to crackdown on panhandling in Fort Collins.
The ACLU filed the federal class-action lawsuit against the city on Tuesday seeking to overturn parts of the city's panhandling ordinance. It claims parts of the law are unconstitutional - such as a ban on asking for donations from at-risk individuals, which includes anyone over 60 years old and the disabled. But it also claims that the city is overreaching in enforcing the law by citing people passively soliciting money - whether people holding signs asking for money or street musicians seeking tips in an open guitar case - and not actively or aggressively soliciting money.
The ACLU obtained copies of almost 100 panhandling citations issued by the city since the summer of 2012 and found that nearly two-thirds were issued to people it doesn't believe violated the law, legal director Mark Silverstein said. "Fort Collins is turning a harmless plea for help into a criminal act and depriving some poor people of their only means of survival," he said.
Interim city attorney Carrie Daggett said her office has received the lawsuit and is reviewing the claims. "We will not likely have a comment at least until we've had a chance to review and evaluate the documents that we've received," she said.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of four homeless people - Abby Landow, Jeffrey Alan, Susan Wymer and Lawrence Beall - as well as 76-year-old Nancy York of Fort Collins, who says she can decide herself whether to give donations to the homeless, and Greenpeace, which has fundraised on city streets for the last nine years. It isn't challenging Fort Collins' prohibition on panhandlers from touching people or from threatening or intimidating them.
Last spring, Grand Junction city councilors approved changes to their panhandling ordinance after the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit challenging the panhandling law there. But the lawsuit is still pending.
Councilors removed a prohibition on knowingly panhandling from at-risk individuals and near school grounds and reduced a no-begging zone around bus stops and automatic tellers from 100 to 20 feet. The Fort Collins law also sets up limits for panhandling near bus stops and ATMs.
Durango agreed to stop enforcing its panhandling limits after learning of the ACLU's objections, Silverstein said.
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