"Vaughan asked the city's legal staff to consider whether the city could ban panhandling altogether. The last time the city council strengthened the begging laws, the city staff said it wasn't legal to do an out-right ban."
And from the same article:
"The last time the city bolstered the rules, in 2012, the American Civil Liberties Union warned city officials that they might be violating panhandlers rights to free speech.
ACLU officials argued that the city's rules were so restrictive that there was virtually no place were panhandling was allowed."
In 2012 I wrote of my friend John, One Of The Panhandlers Greensboro Hates. Things have only gotten worse since then, Greensboro is the hub of the 2nd hungriest metropolitan statistical area in the nation with a poverty rate of over 21% and the highest unemployment of any comparable city in North Carolina. Perhaps Madam Mayor should work on solutions to the causes rather than treating the symptoms.
But rather than do that Nancy Barakat Vaughan would prefer to simply drive them out of town or throw them in jail.
