As a libertarian, I have an uneasy feeling about this proposed legislation -- which would require private businesses to do what the police aren't allowed to do:
City councilman Darrell Clarke says it’s happening all too frequently. Panhandlers at gas stations, he says, intimidate drivers into letting them pump the gas for a handout:
"As soon as you get out of your car, go pay for your gas, you’re accosted by individuals insisting that they pump your gas, sometimes actually opening up your gas tank and putting the pump in while you’re paying for your gas. I think that is ridiculous."
So Clarke has introduced a bill aimed at stopping this. It would place the responsibility on gas station owners to keep panhandlers away from the pumps or the owners themselves would faces fines up to $100 per incident.
I absolutely hate being panhandled, so my sympathies are with the people being asked for money. But having been a small business owner myself, I can tell you what a hassle it is to get the police to do anything about street derelicts who "hang out." For the most part, they really can't arrest them unless they break laws. And few cities have laws against panhandling. Those that do usually have "time, place and manner laws" like this one which was proposed in Atlanta.
But the street derelicts are a favorite cause (fodder, really) of professional activists who yell and scream about the "rights" of the "homeless" to do precisely such things as hassle people for money. This is deemed their First Amendment right. (And I could easily envision an activist construing a pushy attempt to grab a gas pump as "an attempt to find work.")
Philadelphia has a 10 year plan to end homelessness, and even boasts a "homelessness Czar." According to Philadelphia's Project H.O.M.E. (which I just called on the phone) panhandling is not illegal in Philadelphia, and that organization generally opposes proposed legislation that would "target homeless people."
But I am not at all sure this is a homelessness issue. Hassling people at gas pumps strikes me as an opportunistic way of shaking people down, but I see no reason why it would necessarily be linked to homelessness. Many people assume that people who ask for money are marginal types, and they equate this with homelessness, but I recall a study years ago in Berkeley found that a surprisingly large number of panhandlers actually lived at fixed, identifiable addresses, that many paid rent, and some made plenty of money panhandling.
While I do think gas station owners should police their stations, I'm wondering whether the market approach might not be the best solution. If customers learn that a given station is plagued by itinerant "gas pumpers," they'd be well advised to find another station. What strikes me as a bit unfair is the idea of fining person A for the conduct of person B -- without, apparently even the conduct of person B being illegal.
I mean, if it is to be a crime to allow panhandling at your business, shouldn't the panhandling also be illegal?
posted by Eric on 10.28.05 at 01:00 PM
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Just how is an owner or employee supposed who is "panhandling", and what is allowed to be done? Shoot anyone who is on the property for more than a half hour? Douse them with gas and light it?
Calling police about trespass would be hard, since the property is quite deliberately open to the public at large.
I am fairly sure gas stations would like to remove such obnoxious persons now: does this law take into account the reasons no more active stance has already been taken?
John Anderson · October 28, 2005 02:09 PM
Geez, Eric, aren't most of your gas stations self-service as they are here in Texas? If so, there is no way that the service people who are merely behind a counter accepting cash to control behavior at the pumps. At the most at the insistance of their customers, they could file a trespassing complaint with the local police but it still remains the responsibility of the police to enforce what ever laws are applicable.
docdave · October 28, 2005 06:01 PM
I'm against this. This is just the socialists at their usual tricks, inventing yet another excuse to extend government control over business and industry. If a gas station owner doesn't want bums on his property, he has the rick to kick them off. If we wants to let them be there, that's his business. Then, the customers can choose the gas station they prefer, the one with or without the bums. That's what free enterprise is all about.
One of these days, a gas station owner should tell the government: "If you think you can run my business better than I can, then run it yourself. I'm turning it over to you. I quit." One of these days, all honest businessmen in America are going to get fed up and say that. It's getting to be time for Atlas to shrug.
Maybe it is different where you are, but here in Dallas, we have people who "ran out of gas and need a buck or two for gas money." And as soon as you tell the proprietor (especially one who is of Asian decent, and I mean that in the British sense) then the panhandler gets rousted out pronto.
You mess with his living, and the gas station guy will mess you up. And Dallas cops will assume that things are A-OK. In fact, should the bum call the cops, they'll probably pick the guy up for criminal trespass. "He told you to leave, didn't he?"
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
Just how is an owner or employee supposed who is "panhandling", and what is allowed to be done? Shoot anyone who is on the property for more than a half hour? Douse them with gas and light it?
Calling police about trespass would be hard, since the property is quite deliberately open to the public at large.
I am fairly sure gas stations would like to remove such obnoxious persons now: does this law take into account the reasons no more active stance has already been taken?