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Panhandling ordinance will outlaw rescue squad fundraiser Date published: 5/30/2008
BY EMILY BATTLE
It turns out that Fredericksburg can't pick and choose who's allowed to ask for money from motorists on city streets. As a result of a change the City Council made to its panhandling ordinance Tuesday, a 69-year-old tradition of the Fredericksburg Volunteer Rescue Squad will come to an end. Three years ago, the council passed new rules to keep panhandlers from aggressively pursuing people, and from asking for money in public streets, a practice city police say is unsafe. Council members at the time said they wouldn't pass the ordinance unless an exemption was carved out for the Rescue Squad, which has been conducting its "net drive" on Caroline Street since it was founded in 1939. City Attorney Kathleen Dooley told the council Tuesday that, as it turns out, that exemption was an unfair restriction of free speech rights. As Dooley said, solicitation is a form of speech protected by the Constitution's First Amendment. Governments are allowed to restrict the "time, place and manner" of a form of speech. In this case, the city is placing such restrictions on solicitation because the police believe it's unsafe to stand in the road and ask for money. But government can't decide whose solicitation is OK and whose isn't. "When we carved out that protection for the Rescue Squad, we violated that principal of content neutrality," Dooley said Tuesday. The Rescue Squad hasn't figured out how it will replace the annual drive, which it regularly conducts the first Friday and Saturday of October. Uniformed Rescue Squad volunteers wearing vests stand at Caroline's intersections with George, William and Amelia streets and take donations from motorists in nets. Squad spokeswoman Carol Rice said motorists would put everything from checks to change dumped out of ash trays into the nets. In its early years, the drive was known as a "moving tape" fundraiser. Motorists would actually get out of their cars and lay their dollar bills on a tape stretched along Caroline Street. The event often included bands and parades, according to old newspaper accounts. "It's been a tradition. It's a historic town, it's a historic rescue squad," Rice said. She said the drive could bring in anywhere from $10,000 in a slow year to more than $20,000 in a "great" year.
I always get those panhandlers who stalk people in parking lots. This one time some girl stopped her SUV, really an SUV, and asked me for gas money because her mother was very sick in a hospital in Richmond and she needed to get there. There was a five year old in the front seat unbuckled. I should of called the police on her right then, now I can. I kindly said no and then she drove off to ask these other people in the parking lot. Does this ordinance only cover streets??
I certainly did not mean to offend the ACME Running Coyotes! Hope you have a great football season, I'm sure you will beat the Roadrunners this year.
... They stand there and make people feel bad because they're too drunk to get into the shelter. The leave feces in people's yards and on the sidewalks and they strew their trash all over downtown. If the police attempt to enforce the law, all the bleeding hearts with more money than brains step in and defend them as "helpless". They make enought to stay drunk 24 hours a day. I wish I had that kind of money.
Squad Foundation reports around $2.5M in cash and investments. How much more does it need to operate now that the Squad can bill insurance for services rendered? Maybe it's time to end the tradition.
I am deeply offended by your comments pertaining to Acme Law School, as I attend Acme law school and I find your comments to be Lembersky fighting words!
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