Atlanta, GA passes another law against panhandling

I'm sure the homeless read the laws that are designed to deter them from asking for money. How fucking ridiculous is this?

even though pan handlers are annoying i really don't see how most of these these laws are consitutional

The way I have seen it discussed is that the courts will have to struggle with whether panhandling is expression or behavior.. if panhandling falls under behavior, then it is easier to argue for the constitutionality of the laws, but if panhandling is seen as an expression then they might violated freedom of speech.

there are a ton of "behaviors" the court has protected as speech over the years - but yeah, with the current make up of the court, I figure they would find a way to allow these laws

right under the interpretation of Expression, no? behavior as, and soley for, behaving, vs. behavior for expression

Yeah, I read about this last week in the AJC when it passed.

It's just another step in a long line of desperate attempts by the city to "save" downtown. Still, I'm not entirely convinced of how bad this is. Supposedly repeat offenders are going to be taken to large sheltering facilities. That'll be especially awesome for those few scamming assholes with long BS stories about how they're from out of town, are stranded, etc.

It seems very wrong on principle, but 90% editorialized articles like that Yahoo thing conveniently leave out any concrete details about how this thing actually works. Of course, the AJC article didn't offer a whole lot more, but it offered some actual arguments by city council members on both sides.

Anyway, I've got pretty mixed feelings about just about everything that's been going on in the ATL lately.