Asheville considers stricter panhandling rules

Asheville City Council is preparing to vote on a proposal that would restrict panhandling along many of the city’s commercial corridors.

The Asheville Police Department and City Manager Debra Campbell have said the update to city ordinances would improve safety for pedestrians and drivers, as well as give officials another tool for dealing with the impacts of homelessness. But many community members are worried the changes could criminalize people in poverty instead of providing the help they need.

APD Deputy Chief Sean Aardema shared the details of the proposal during a July 31 meeting of Council’s Public Safety Committee, during which Vice Mayor Antanette Mosley and Council members Bo Hess and Sheneika Smith unanimously recommended the plan for a full Council vote. Its language would add to the city’s existing “high traffic zone,” areas where begging “by use of gestures or spoken words” is prohibited. (Solicitation using signs is allowed anywhere in the city, with minor exceptions.)

Those areas haven’t been updated since at least 2003. They currently encompass all of Biltmore Village and most of downtown Asheville. If the new rules are approved, the downtown zone would expand to include parts of Merrimon Avenue and the South Slope. New high traffic zones would also cover Haywood Road, Patton Avenue, and Tunnel/South Tunnel Roads.

Each of the newly proposed zones, Aardema said, was a hotspot for both panhandling activity and pedestrian-vehicle collisions. He noted that roughly 30 percent of the city’s pedestrian crashes this year had taken place within 25 feet of a reported panhandling location. Although he did not establish that panhandling had directly caused those crashes, he said the correlations were strong enough for the APD to recommend stricter rules.

“There are concerns about the safety of those that are panhandling,” added Campbell. “There is a deep concern also for the business and property owners along these major corridors, and trying to mitigate any type of negative and unfortunate, possibly secondary, impacts on those particular users.”

BPR reached out to both the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce and West Asheville Business Association to learn more about their members’ experiences of panhandling and whether they supported the city’s proposal. Neither responded to multiple requests for comment.

Opponents of the new restrictions have been more vocal. A dozen commenters called into the July meeting, all criticizing the rule change. Among them was the Rev. Sara Wilcox, pastor of the Land of Sky United Church of Christ, which sits close to the proposed Tunnel Road high traffic zone.

Speaking with BPR after the meeting, Wilcox said she had noticed an uptick in panhandling after Hurricane Helene but that, in her experience, most of those seeking help were begging with signs on the side of the road and not interrupting traffic. She worries that the stricter rules could end up bringing more people into the criminal justice system without significantly improving public safety. Violation of the city’s panhandling ordinance is a misdemeanor carrying a fine of up to $50; those who beg while in the road or on a median can be fined up to $500.

“At this moment, it lacks any imagination to just be targeting folks who are homeless,” Wilcox said. She said the city should instead be working more closely with housing providers, addiction treatment centers and Buncombe County’s community paramedics to address the root problems that led people to panhandle.

In response to a BPR request for comment, APD spokesperson Rick Rice noted that the majority of police encounters with panhandlers don’t end with enforcement. Of the 381 panhandling calls the department received over the year prior to Aug. 7, only 8 led to arrests, with citations issued in another 129 cases.

“Enforcement circumstances may include when a panhandler is being aggressive or threatening (i.e., banging on windows), has received warnings previously, or is blocking vehicular or pedestrian traffic,” Rice explained about the APD’s approach.

During the July meeting, Campbell also emphasized that expanding the high traffic zones was just one approach the city was considering to address panhandling, alongside greater outreach and connecting people to services. “There are certain behaviors that we hope we can mitigate, but it is not our intent to use this as a hammer,” she said.

Council’s vote on adopting the new panhandling rules is currently scheduled for its regular meeting in Council Chambers on the second floor of Asheville City Hall, 70 Court Plaza, beginning at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 26.