Before Super Bowl Comes, Dallas Expands Its Ban On Panhandling

[The Straight Story]

Before Super Bowl Comes, Dallas Expands Its Ban On Panhandling

DALLAS (AP) -- Dallas is expanding its ordinance against panhandling.

The decision comes as North Texas prepares to host the 2011 Super Bowl.

The Dallas City Council on Wednesday voted to create four around-the-clock "solicitation-free" zones, in the downtown business district, Deep Ellum, Uptown and Victory Park.

The city already bans panhandling at night, along streets and at cash machines and parking meters.

The stricter ordinance takes effect Jan. 1. Violators face $500 fines.

Mayor Tom Leppert says panhandling is a real, ongoing issue.

http://www.ktxs.com/texas_news/26075594/detail.html

[BlueJazz]

1. "Violators face $500 fines."

:rofl:

[bluestateguy]

2. And if they don't pay they go to jail

Where they get 3 meals a day, a warm bed and free health care.

[Auggie]

3. Other ongoing issues Leppert should know about: eating, clothing, surviving...

[NaturalHigh]

4. By all means, let's ban people from asking for the pocket change that might help them survive.

Disgusting. Do they really think that these poor people just woke up one day and decided to beg for spare change?

[w8liftinglady]

5. Yes...THIS is how "True" Texans treat the poor(See my other post)

[louis-t]

6. In Michigan, before our last Superbowl, the homeless

were rounded up and given a place to stay for a few days. On the one hand, they didn't freeze to death. On the other hand....

[MineralMan]

7. Uff da! At a time when the homeless and the poor could possibly

get enough money from kindly people to afford a room or a good meal, Texas wants to jail them.

I've been in Texas...twice...while serving in the USAF. I was not impressed in any way with that state. I have not been back, nor will I ever be back. If anyone's interested, I'll write what happened there during those two stays.

[w8liftinglady]

8. LOL..If you were at Goodfellow-we may have known each other...

it has spiraled even worse since then,believe it or not

[MineralMan]

10. I was at Goodfellow, in 1967.

My experience there was the crowning one for my opinion of that state. I was an Airman First Class, going to some high-security training at the base. At the time, I was still marginally a church-goer, but the protestant chaplain at Goodfellow was a fundamentalist, and his sort of "Christianity" was very alien to me. So, shortly after I got there, feeling pretty lonely for some non-military company, I ventured into town to a Presbyterian Church one Sunday morning. I took the bus, dressed in my Class A uniform, and seated myself at the back of the church for the service, which was quite familiar to me. I sang the hymns and quietly listened to the sermon.

At the end of the service, a man in his mid-40s came up to me and said, "Look. We think you'd be happier attending services at a chapel on the base. We'd rather you did that." I found out that he was a deacon in that church. I wrote a long letter to my old home-town pastor, with whom I had a very good relationship, relating my experience, and he contacted the church and told me who had spoken to me. He was dumbfounded. The church in my hometown always welcomed any stranger, especially a man in uniform. Heck, you'd be eating at someone's house for Sunday dinner if you walked into that church in uniform and alone.

I was so shocked that I couldn't say a word. I left, never to return to that church. I didn't attend the base chapel, either, and it was part of my journey toward atheism. I was just 22 years old, and pretty naive, generally. I had gotten involved with the civil rights movement before joining the Air Force, but was still very wet behind the ears.

That, and an incident in San Antonio while I was in Basic Training, where I was severely beaten by a couple of guys in cowboy hats and boots after leaving a Mexican restaurant on a day pass, left me with an extremely bad impression of Texas. I was a stranger there, but serving my country. I expected better. I was disappointed. To this day, I have not set foot in that state again, nor will I ever.

"Texas is a whole other country," I guess.

[w8liftinglady]

12. If you learned Chinese,then my dad was your instructor...et al.

As far as I know,they are still open.I migrated to THIS lovely part of Tx in 1985.

and,FWIW-most of the guys in linguistics were agnostic.

[MineralMan]

13. I was a Russian linguist, there for some radio training and the

like. I went from there to Samsun, Turkey, then to Ft. George W. Meade in Maryland, where I worked a very large building with no windows. Long, long ago. A pity I didn't meet you while I was there, I'm sure.

[w8liftinglady]

14. LOL...I was at Ft Meade,Too...My dad was assigned to NSA

You didn't miss much-i was a typical bitchy teen.

[MineralMan]

11. Is Goodfellow still operating as an Air Force Base?

[rainbow4321]

9. Pfft...good luck with that

Having spent the last 3 years taking mass trans, I can say that the Dallas area panhandlers are very discreet and at most all of the light rail stations and the station security is never any where to be found.

Every station, same scenario/questions I would get asked while waiting on the train or bus:

Can I buy a cigarette (one guy asked while he was standing there already smoking one)
Can I have your train ticket
Can I use your cell phone
Can I have money
Can I have the change that you just got back from the vending machine
Can you not finish that cigarette so I can have what's left of it



And that would be all at just one station. Repeat at the next 2 stations on the way to work and then on the trip home at night.

Yeah, I'll get flamed, I know. But it got to a point where if someone was at a Dallas mass trans station or anywhere downtown and they made eye contact with you, be ready for the "can I..."