Federal Judge Strikes Down 2 Worcester Anti-Panhandling Ordinances
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
U.S. District Court Judge Timothy S. Hillman struck down Ordinance 9-16 which made it “unlawful for any person to beg, panhandle or solicit any other person in an aggressive manner,” and Ordinance 13-77 which prohibits “walking or standing on any traffic island or upon the roadway of any street or highway” except to cross the street or enter or exit a vehicle.
As GoLocal reported, the ordinances were adopted in January of 2013 as part of an effort to control aggressive panhandling.
Hillman previously upheld the laws, but said recent decisions by courts in Lowell and Portland, Maine changed his thinking.
“Suffice to say that for the same reasons adopted by those courts, I find that the entirety of Ordinance 9-16 (against aggressive panhandling) fails because it is not the least restrictive means available to protect the public and therefore does not satisfy strict scrutiny,” Hillman wrote in his opinion. “The city can point to specific medians and traffic islands as to which a pedestrian use should be prohibited in the interest of public safety ... however, on this record, it has not established the need for the ‘sweeping ban.' "
Matthew R. Segal, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts who represented the plaintiffs who sued the City of Worcester over the two ordinances, said that the victory was “enormously important.”
“It’s the right to free speech by people who don’t have money; it’s really testing whether free speech is free,” Segal said. “They’re three pillars, three decisions really standing for the proposition that free speech stands for everyone. There are not two First Amendments, one for the rich and one for the poor.”
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