The San Clemente City Council will consider joining nearby cities that have their own ordinances regulating unsafe pedestrian behavior in the streets during its next meeting on Tuesday night, March 7.
With a vote of approval, city staff would begin drafting an ordinance on “street-side solicitation,” or encroachment onto public right of ways and medians, that looks to prohibit people from asking for gifts or services on San Clemente streets.
City officials have said the potential ordinance is meant to protect pedestrians and drivers from dangerous situations.
Nonprofit groups such as the National Homelessness Law Center actively campaign against anti-panhandling ordinances, citing that city resources should be allocated toward tangible solutions for homeless people.
The item comes to the council after the Public Safety Committee unanimously recommended consideration of a municipal code amendment similar to cities such as Aliso Viejo, Laguna Hills, Laguna Niguel and Lake Forest.
The committee did so during a Nov. 22 meeting, advising that staff work with former Chief of Police Services Capt. Tony Benfield and the city attorney’s office in presenting the matter to the council.
Councilmember Gene James, then the town’s mayor, first brought up the matter of panhandling during the council’s meeting on Sept. 20, citing that other nearby cities have passed related ordinances.
“This is getting more and more problematic,” James had said last September. “I really think that we need to look at an ordinance on that and start nipping that in the bud.”
Former Councilmember Laura Ferguson and current Mayor Pro Tem Steve Knoblock expressed support for discussing it at another council meeting before Mayor Chris Duncan spoke up.
Duncan suggested that it would be best for the Public Safety Committee to address the matter first, given the law enforcement officers who participate in those committee meetings.
After the committee’s members initially had a general discussion of the topic, they voted in November once Benfield provided them more information. Benfield was recently promoted within the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and is no longer serving as the city’s police chief.
Although absent from the November meeting, Benfield indicated his support for the “enforceable” ordinance, according to Deputy Community Development Director Adam Atamian.
Committee Chair Rick Loeffler called the potential ordinance beneficial and referenced other cities that have similar rules. Committee member Scotland Roeber expressed a preference to model the local ordinance off a neighboring town’s.
“I think the Laguna Niguel model is probably the one that I draw to because it seems like it’s the most enforceable and the least granular,” said Roeber. “It leaves the most ability for that deputy … to have that discretion to enforce or educate, and to apply the law in the appropriate scale.”
Loeffler agreed that Laguna Niguel’s was the best worded. Other committee members noted its language was concise and broad.
Laguna Niguel’s ordinance, as provided by the city’s agenda report for Tuesday night’s meeting, prohibits solicitation for commercial purposes and activities associated with sidewalk vending without a permit, solicitation on public property, and perpetration of deception or fraud while soliciting.
Activities permitted by Laguna Niguel’s council or another department are still allowed.
Vice Chair Charles Hightower asked his colleagues to reflect on what group of people they really wanted the ordinance to address.
“I think this is really targeting, by and large, homeless individuals,” Hightower said. “If we do recommend this, we should remember the impact it’s going to have on these people in the city.”
Loeffler said he was hesitant to use “targeting” in any sense relating to the initiative, and claimed that there are also criminals who come into San Clemente to solicit, as well as homeless people. Regardless, he added, people can still solicit or “panhandle” so long as they’re not impeding the flow of traffic.
The concept is a public safety issue more than anything else, according to Loeffler, and committee member Michael Greenwald added that an ordinance would be meant to protect everyone, including unhoused people.
Loeffler then gave an example of how a typical interaction between law enforcement and someone engaging in solicitation would unfold.
“Going out and grabbing (someone) for panhandling and taking four hours to take them to jail or do whatever is not what you want to do,” he said. “But, at least this way, if there is an issue, you can legally approach them and say, ‘Could you step out over there and not bother traffic?’ And then you’re gone.”
Hightower thanked his peers for expanding on the law enforcement standpoint.
Regarding the item that will be in front of the council Tuesday night, staff added a recommendation for the city attorney’s office to be involved in any drafting of an ordinance, in order to avoid violating First Amendment rights to free speech.
Officials with the local San Clemente Homeless Collaborative and San Clemente Affordable Housing Coalition did not respond to requests for comment as of this posting.
The meeting will begin with the closed session portion at 5 p.m., followed by the section open to the public at 6 p.m. Visit the city’s YouTube channel to view online.
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