Santa Cruz: Ban the Beggars!
A casually dressed tourist leans against a building downtown on Pacific Ave. idly sipping his iced mocha cappuccino, as he soaks in the pageantry of the street traffic. Next month, this act will most likely be a criminal act. On September 10th, the “Progressive” Santa Cruz City Council will reconvene to “finetune” the new anti-homeless ordinances, hustled through in a record 4 meetings in 15 days.
Although the dramatic changes to the sitting ordinance, the soliciting ordinance, display of merchandise, storage of property, and the conduct on public property ordinance were pushed through, few of the problems merchants had complained about will be addressed. Instead of address perceived problems of vandalism, shoplifting, shootings, stabbings, drug sales, sexual harassment, and lack of bathrooms, the new laws target, sitting, spare changing, and resting an “unattended” backpack on the sidewalk with additional restrictions on street performers and political activists.
Gentrification seemed to be the merchant agenda, for these ordinances which go into effect on August 23, target the menace of blowing bubbles, playing hackey-sack, Frisbee, football, juggling, jacks, people playing music, street musicians, tarot card readers, political tables, and beggars. Already illegal on Pacific Ave. are dogs, skateboards, putting a foot on the 8” high concrete lip of a tree-well, asking for spare change after dark, sitting on a bench the wrong way, asking for spare change from a seated position or in groups of two or more, riding a bicycle on the sidewalk, lying down, sitting 10 feet from a building, dropping a cigarette butt on the sidewalk, “displaying” your artwork on or music for sale (or even for a donation), and, if you believe the police, chalking on the sidewalk.
14 FT. GHETTO
Differentially effected by the ordinances are the street musicians who accept donations, street entertainers such as Mr. Twister and Wild Willie, two clowns who twist balloons into animal shapes to the delight of children. They accept tips for their work, so they will be ghettoized. They will join any political table that includes a donation can (which is pretty much all of them) in the tiny regions left to perform or table after the forbidden zone is expanded to 14” from a building, an intersection, a mid-block crosswalk, a drinking fountain, a telephone, the railing of an outdoor cafe, or a bench. “The benches were missing from the diagrams,” reports Kathy Bisbee, Downtown Commission Chair, commenting on the drawings that staff brought to city council as it rushed through the laws. The diagrams, prepared by Julie Hendee of the Santa Cruz Redevelopment Agency (RDA repeatedly erred in showing “green opportunity zones” where none existed in reality. For the RDA, which socially engineered “Yuppie Planter” at Pacific Ave. and Lincoln St. last February, with its privatization of “Hippie Planter” the green opportunity for homeless panhandlers will be almost non-existent.
Two and half weeks and three downtown commission meetings later, on August 13th, the RDA maps still failed to indicate all benches, some crosswalks, and at least on large planter area, exaggerating the area of the “opportunity zones” as Vice-Mayor Emily Reilly cheerfully renamed the small areas not covered by forbidden by her law.
Her upbeat bigotry is not new. Last October she led the council to ban homeless parking in the Harvey West industrial area of Santa Cruz from 5AM to 7AM allegedly for daily “street cleaning.” 400-500 homeless people, living in their vehicles, risk losing those vehicles if they cannot pay the expensive tickets that can accumulate quickly. Reilly described this homelessremoval program as “a compromise.” Reilly described this years steamroller downtown ordinances as “putting things in balance. Last year activists hoisted an “EMILY REILLY’S VOTES HURT THE POOR” banner in front of her Mission Street Emily’s “Good Things to Eat” Bakery.
Councilmember Tim Fitzmaurice, who is the only incumbent seeking re-election this November, seems determined to bring his City Council rules of decorum to the public sidewalks of Pacific Ave. He has banned hackey-sack players from Pacific Ave. And he did so by passionately relating an incident he had witnessed of a young man playing Frisbee and crashing into an elderly woman walking by with her domestic partner and her daughter. “He didn’t apologize. And when they complained, he turned and looked at them and said, ‘You fucking dikes!’” Fitzmaurice’s voice shook with anger as he moved to act to end this injustice.
Did he speak to the young man in an attempt to sensitize him the error of his ways? No. Did he recommend that the human rights task force expand diversity and tolerance outreach to high school boys? No. Did he make a citizen’s arrest of the young man for recklessly endangering the woman? No. He banned Frisbees!!
“How can banning hacky-sacks reduce drug dealing on Pacific Ave.?” Mayor Christopher Krohn asked. Councilmember Ed Porter answered back that drug dealers get bored waiting for a drug deal to occur and like to entertain themselves by playing hacky-sack. Highlighting the public comment period on the downtown ordinances was the Mammary Manifesto. This ad hoc collective of three 20 year-olds who wrote a colorful and wellresearched critique (see www. frazadelic.com) of the perceived crime wave on Pacific Ave., and read it during the public comment period taking turns reading the entire document into the record three minutes at a time.
The first speaker, a young woman sporting a fabulous blue and black Mohawk headdress began her public comment period by pulling her top off. She then explained that while there had been only two complaints of topless women on Pacific Ave. in the past six months, both of them for the same woman, a tourist, who has since left town, “The only time you ever tend to see women’s breasts on Pacific Ave. is when you try to ban them!” Standing in line, the remaining members of the Mammary Manifesto removed their shirts as well. One young woman also blew bubbles through the council chambers. A petition circulated by Candi Jackson of Jackson’s Shoes had recommended banning women’s bare breasts from Pacific Ave., but no such language appeared in any of the ordinances.
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE BEGGARS
Moments after passing the sweeping ordinance changes into law, the Councilmembers planned to grant exemptions. “We won’t ban professional bubble blowers,” Councilmember Ed Porter confidently predicted. But no such language appeared in the text of the ordinance they had just passed. The Downtown Commission was given the clean-up job. In early August, the generally pro-ordinance commissioners walked Pacific Ave. looking for “traditional” areas to exempt from the 14 foot forbidden zones for street musicians, political tables, or street entertainers. No one advocated for the beggars.
In fact, it’s all about the beggars. Sexual harassment is already illegal under existing ordinances. The ordinances expand the prohibitions against peaceful sparechanging from a seated position, in groups of two or more, or after dark to include silent sparechangers, performers, or political activists on all sidewalks in town. What does this have to do with women walking on Pacific Ave. who are getting unwanted come-ons from young men? Neither the Downtown Commission nor its “Big Brother” the City Council could say. But they worked furiously on “finding exemptions” for the “worthy” donation seekers (tablers and performers).
Less hypocritical was Orlando, Florida — which banned sitting or lying on the sidewalk on August 5th. While the Santa Cruz City Council and the Santa Cruz Sentinel said not one word about the main target of these laws — “commercially unviable” homeless people — the Orlando Sentinel was more outspoken:
“The Orlando City Council voted 6-0 Monday to further crack down on the homeless after getting complaints that too many vagrants sleep in doorways or spend hours on sidewalks in front of businesses.” The undeniable conclusion that the purpose of these ordinances is to ban the beggars. For the merchants are loath to see beggars outside of their stores.
Since the soliciting ordinance is in place citywide, and most other sidewalks in the commercial districts are less than 14 feet wide, quite a chunk has been taken out of public space to “discourage” homeless people and panhandlers.
An obscure part of the ordinance bans the purchase of an item for an amount that is so much larger than the value of the item that both parties agree its a donation. One young woman commented. “I tried to get some items for my apartment on Pacific Ave. $60 for a pot! Sheets for $125! I feel I must be donating well above the true value when I shop on Pacific Ave.!” On August 23rd, the ordinances will take effect. After a two-week warning the period the police will begin to ticket homeless people for standing, holding a sign after dark which says “Cold, Hungry, Homeless, Please Help. God Bless!” Violators must pay the state $162. If they don’t pay the fine, they will be arrested and jailed for an additional $200 booking fee.
Repeat offenders may face the irony of probation condition that ties them to the Santa Cruz area for three years, but bars them from the downtown area, as is being done with minor marijuana dealers in the latest police crackdown and selective enforcement.
On August 12, the CPRB voted to hold a special hearing to look into police harassment and selective enforcement downtown. A day later at the Downtown Commission, activists were asking the commission to use their positions to try to stop the new laws. “At least wait until you hear from Berkeley, Olympia, and Portland on alternative solutions” said an activist from Downtown For All, an organization that formed precisely to oppose the new ordinances.
It seems that internationally-famous bubble blower, Tom Noddy’s “Bubble Magic” show will be barred commercial districts on August 23rd (when the ordinance becomes law) under MC 9.50.020 which bans “(Any) liquid substance to be thrown, discharged, launched, spilled, or to become airborne.” Councilmember Ed Porter told the Downtown Commissioners he wanted traditional performers like Noddy “to be exempted.”
Noddy is not grateful. “City Council just killed our successful voluntary Street Performers Guidelines” with bad new laws that are simply stupid. These guidelines took us months to hammer out in 1980 and have worked well for years. Now the Downtown Commission invites me to ‘help’ rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic? No thanks!” Downtown For All has begun plans to make citizens arrests of well-todo citizens sitting down on the sidewalk waiting for a trendy breakfast at Zachary’s or for jaywalking across the street by the Cinema 9. Selective enforcement is the key to banishing the beggars on Pacific Ave. If well-dressed middle-class people and visiting tourists receive $162 citations for sitting or crossing a street, the council may just rush back to reconsider.
Becky