Iowa City council supports eliminating panhandling on Ped Mall

IOWA CITY - City officials are one step closer to asking panhandlers to take their solicitations a few steps back in downtown Iowa City.

The council last night voted 6 to 1 in favor during the first reading of a proposed ordinance that would eliminate panhandling on the Pedestrian Mall, save for a small area, as well as require solicitors to stay 20 feet away from ATMs and 10 feet from mobile vendors.

City law already restricts panhandling within 10 feet of downtown building entrances, but the new proposal would also ban any solicitations within 10 feet of a building and within 15 feet of crosswalks.

Mayor Matt Hayek called the ordinance a “sensible approach” to complaints by downtown businesses whose owners say panhandlers are adversely affecting their business and dissuading potential customers from coming downtown.

“This ordinance does an excellent job at being sensitive to the importance of the balance between the rights of pedestrians downtown with individuals' rights to freedom of assembly,” Hayek said.

The city's Downtown Association supports the new ordinance, though it had been lobbying for a greater crackdown on solicitors since the fall of last November.

Council member Mike Wright called the ordinance “mean-spirited and small” and cast the lone dissenting vote.

The ordinance “is anti-poor,” Wright said. “This represents a spirit of meanness … one that denies that the poor are with us.”

The ordinance was discussed by the council during a work session Monday night and will have to go through two more readings before it can go into effect, which would be in June.

In other business, the city council voted unanimously to hire Slavin Management Consultants to lead the search for a new city manager.

Iowa City fired former city manager Michael Lombardo in April of 2009 after he'd been on the job for less than a year.