Board to consider repealing ordinance

City staff is asking the Hot Springs Board of Directors to repeal the ordinance it adopted in September in response to panhandlers soliciting money from motorists.

The board will consider an ordinance repealing the panhandling measure tonight, one of three items of new business before the board when it convenes at 7 p.m. at City Hall, 133 Convention Blvd.

The city agreed last month to suspend enforcement of the ordinance pending the resolution of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas-sponsored lawsuit filed last month in federal court on behalf of Michael Rodgers, whom the complaint alleges has been threatened with arrest by Hot Springs police for panhandling since the ordinance’s adoption.

The lawsuit seeks to prevent the city from enforcing the ordinance. The ACLU said last month it expected Rodgers to drop

the lawsuit if the ordinance was repealed.

The ACLU filed a similar action against the cities of Rogers and Fort Smith last month on behalf of Glynn Dilbeck, whom the complaint said has been harassed and cited for begging in both cities.

The Rogers City Council repealed and replaced the city’s panhandling ordinance last week with one that prohibits pedestrians from approaching a vehicle that is in operation on a public street.

Hot Springs City Attorney Brian Albright told the board at last week’s agenda meeting that a separate ordinance addressing pedestrians in public rights of way will come before it at a later date.

“The basis of the (panhandling) ordinance was to deal with public safety,” he said. “I think that’s been misconstrued to some extent. So we will repeal that, if you approve this ordinance, in its entirety and deal with the public safety concerns to pedestrians and vehicular traffic independently.”

Pleadings in Rodgers’ lawsuit argue Hot Springs is invoking public safety as a pretext for ridding the city of the unwanted public presence of panhandlers. The ordinance adopted in September bans sitting, standing, walking or entering a roadway, median or portion of a public street for the purpose of soliciting any items, including money, from the occupant of a vehicle.

It was adopted in response to the influx of panhandlers at some of the city’s most trafficked areas that followed Rodgers’ successful appeal of a loitering conviction. Division 1 Circuit Judge John Homer Wright overturned Rodgers’ October 2015 district court conviction for loitering last summer, ruling that the state’s loitering statute was unconstitutional in light of begging being constitutionally-protected speech.

U.S. District Judge Billy Roy Wilson issued a permanent injunction against the loitering statute in November, decreeing the law was an infringement “on the freedom of speech guaranteed under the First Amendment to the Federal Constitution.”

The lawsuit claims that in addition to interfering with Rodgers’ free speech rights, the ordinance also imposes a hardship on his ability to earn a living.

Consent agenda

Tonight’s consent agenda includes a resolution approving Bubba Brew’s Express Trolley, LLC’s lease of office and ground space at Hot Springs Memorial Field.

The trolley service for Bubba Brew’s Sports Pub and Grill LLC, plans to use the 424 square-foot office and adjacent parking lot as a pickup and drop-off location for overflow parking at the restaurant. The city said the airport is 1.75 miles east of the restaurant’s 1252 Airport Road location.

The agreement will generate $6,270 a year in lease income for the airport fund.