Is Panhandling Our Constitutional Right?

By Rachelle Bowden in News on Sep 22, 2005 12:03PM

Four panhandlers have filed a civil rights lawsuit saying Chicago police and the city violated their rights. They claim that the police, by enforcing an ordinance that prohibits people from congregating on or obstructing bridges, have unfairly singled them out as they solicited money and that the city ordinances are unconstitutional and violate their freedom of speech and other constitutional rights.

Their lawer said, "If the first amendment allows people to spew Nazi hatred on the street-corner, it allows you to ask someone for a quarter." The loophole is that the panhandlers were on bridges. Their lawyer points out that the No Congregating on Bridges Law was made quite a while ago..... when there were concerns about livestock being herded onto wooden bridges and causing them to collapse.

A couple years ago some panhandlers won a similar suit and got $400/panhandler.

Get your own panhandler sign here.