BY LEON B. CREWS<\/p>\n
Sentinel Staff Writer<\/p>\n
After listening to City Attorney Chip Fletcher\u2019s explanation of what a partial ban on panhandling would mean, the Tampa City Council voted 4-3 to move ahead with the ordinance.<\/p>\n
The ordinance on a partial ban was the idea of Council Chairman, Thomas Scott, who never accepted the idea of a complete ban.<\/p>\n
Council-Chair Scott, along with some of his colleagues, felt a complete ban would hurt non-profit groups and vendors who depend on the money they collect either to help children with medical disabilities, or just to live.<\/p>\n
According to the proposed ordinance, a partial ban would involve panhandling being prohibited on certain streets, mostly where the traffic is the heaviest.<\/p>\n
Voting no on the proposed ordinance were Councilmen Joe Caetano and Charlie Miranda, and Councilwoman Yvonne Capin.<\/p>\n
The ordinance now will move on for a second reading on February 3rd where a public hearing will also be conducted.<\/p>\n
Most adamant about a total ban was Councilman Caetano, who initiated the effort for a total ban months ago, citing public safety issues. However, no evidence was ever produced to justify that panhandling represented a public safety issue, other than the arrogance of some panhandlers when they approach a motorist.<\/p>\n
Council members Gwen Miller, Mary Mulhern, Curtis Stokes, and Chair Scott all voted in favor of the partial ban.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BY LEON B. CREWS Sentinel Staff Writer After listening to City Attorney Chip Fletcher\u2019s explanation of what a partial ban on panhandling would mean, the Tampa City Council voted 4-3 to move ahead with the ordinance. The ordinance on a partial ban was the idea of Council Chairman, Thomas Scott, who never accepted the idea […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}