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ST. PETERSBURG — Attention panhandlers: Go back to writing whatever you want to on those cardboard signs — even if it's not true.
The city's proposed ordinance to ban those misleading signs was withdrawn Friday by assistant city attorney Mark Winn.
Winn said he erred in proposing the ordinance. He believed he was modeling it on a recently passed state law that banned aggressive panhandling.
Turns out, that legislation died in committee.
"I was mistaken," Winn said. "There is no state legislation on this, so there is no need for us to be addressing this issue at this time."
The new state law, Winn thought, could serve as a model for the city to strengthen its antipanhandling laws.
The enforcement of those laws, and the creation of the new Pinellas Safe Harbor shelter, has pushed the city's homeless and panhandling population off the streets and into shelters — or at least out of town.
The now-defunct "fraudulent panhandling" ordinance would have banned "false or misleading" signs. For example, if a panhandler claimed he was a veteran or disabled but wasn't.
Winn said he received mixed reaction about the proposal, split between support and opposition.
He noted there's nothing that prevents the city from enacting such an ordinance, but added that there appears to be no appetite for it from the city's elected leaders.
The proposal was set to make its first appearance in front of the City Council next week.
"We're withdrawing it at this point," he said. "No council member or the mayor has expressed any interest in moving forward with the ordinance at this point."
There may have been First Amendment issues with the proposed ordinance, which was quickly denounced by critics like Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender Bob Dillinger.
He believed it would have been hard to enforce and another way of criminalizing homelessness.
"I'm glad they did the right thing," Dillinger said Friday.
Jamal Thalji can be reached at thalji@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8472.
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