Downtown crackdown
9 Sep
Now that this no pandhandling ordinance is being seriously enforced, yesterday I noticed more cops than usual downtown around Woodruff Park, and saw someone getting arrested, and spotted piles of these little Central Atlanta Progress/United Way cards in places where panhandlers might try to congregate, like inside the Smoothie King in Fairlie-Poplar:
That’s it, you guys. This is going to be the year that I turn my life around! I can feel it.
(I mean, I still got asked for change twice within two blocks, but still.)
But now it seems like they’re cracking down on everything, according to someone named Dreadlord:
So…
I just got a citation from Atlanta representing their environmental court’s intention to prosecute me for eating french fries within the entrance to the Five Points MARTA station. $25-60.
Oh no! So the City of Atlanta can issue these citations, and not MARTA? I know that you can’t eat or drink on MARTA, but nothing of this “within the entrance” business. I carry my Aurora cup with me on MARTA all the time and none of the MARTA cops bat an eye. But maybe because I am not in a crappy “tourist district” when toting the coffee because THERE IS NO DECENT COFFEE DOWNTOWN.
Tags: downtown, fairlie poplar, marta, panhandlers
City governments are notoriously horrible at figuring these things out. I’m not trying to get all libertarian here, but this is one of those cases where more laws = busier jails and less discussing effective solutions.