Lafayette may repeal panhandling laws, but police tactics have already changed

Lafayette’s City Council moved ahead Tuesday with plans to repeal a pair of rules used to crack down on panhandling, but police have already changed strategies to arrest people asking for money.

The council set a May 3 vote on repealing two local laws. The first makes it illegal to act “in such a manner as to annoy, disturb, interfere, obstruct, or to be offensive to others” under a prohibition on “criminal mischief.” The second prohibits them from “begging and soliciting” for money “aggressively.”

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The move comes as one homeless resident is suing the city over the Lafayette Police Department’s aggressive targeting of panhandlers using a trio of laws that includes the two up for repeal at the next City Council meeting.

Lawsuit: Is Lafayette's crackdown on panhandling constitutional? One lawsuit says no.

But regardless of how the City Council votes on the repeal effort, it stands to have little impact on how LPD officers target people asking for money at the city’s busy intersections, since LPD abandoned its use of the two laws up for repeal months ago and has switch strategies to use a different law that prohibits obstructing roadways.

“This is not going to solve the underlying issue. It's just the next tool in the arsenal,” said attorney Kristen Amond, who is representing the homeless resident suing the city over its panhandling efforts.

“Repealing those two statutes, as long as they're going to continue to target panhandlers … the actions are equally as unconstitutional.”

Lafayette’s “criminal mischief” law was found to be unconstitutional by a local judge in April 2021, leading officers to then rely on the city’s “begging and soliciting” law until December, when officers were told to instead arrest panhandlers using a third law prohibiting roadway obstructions under advice from the City Prosecutor’s Office.

Lafayette begging rules: Lafayette police launch new detail to crack down on panhandling

“If the suspect is witnessed (by a Police Officer) walking in the roadway to accept money, charge the suspect with (City Code Section 62-68) Simple Obstruction of a highway of commerce instead of 62‐71 Begging and Soliciting,” LPD Precinct 4 Commander Capt. Judith Estorge wrote in a Dec. 14 email to officers.

The local roadway obstruction law, which mirrors a state statute, was targeted in the lawsuit filed by a homeless resident in January, and is being challenged as unconstitutional.

While the city is set to vote on repealing the “criminal mischief” and the “begging and soliciting” laws, the “simple obstruction” law “is problematic,” according to attorney Eric Foley, who is also representing the homeless resident suing the city over its panhandling efforts.

“There was a pretty famous (U.S.) Supreme Court case, Cox v. Louisiana, that dealt with some civil rights protesters in Baton Rouge that were arrested under a very similar statute of obstructing a public passageway,” he said.

“The issue there was the Supreme Court said anytime you have a statute like that … you're just kind of setting up a First Amendment problem there, because you're giving unfettered discretion to the government to decide whose speech is legal and whose isn't.”

To that end, Foley and Amond have asked a federal court to issue an injunction prohibiting LPD from using the highway obstruction law to arrest people for panhandling while the judge determines whether the law violates the constitutional rights of people who panhandle.

“Surely, there are less restrictive means of protecting public safety than criminalizing all who set foot in a roadway to seek a donation,” they wrote in their court filing.

“This enforcement policy is less about public safety than about sparing people from an uncomfortable public interaction with people who are poor and seeking help.”

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This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Repealing panhandling laws 'not going to solve' constitutional issues