St. Louis County officials are gearing up for another attempt to clamp down on so-called “aggressive” panhandling, this time by targeting people who solicit drivers from medians or in traffic lanes. The renewed push has reopened a familiar divide between leaders who cast the move as a public-safety fix and civil-liberties advocates who warn it edges toward criminalizing poverty and chilling protected speech.
As reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, county leaders are reviving proposals that would regulate panhandling and other “solicitation in roadways” by limiting where and how people can ask motorists for money. Draft language under discussion would focus on solicitors who step into travel lanes or station themselves on medians, although officials say the wording is still a work in progress. Supporters insist the goal is to cut down on risky encounters at busy intersections rather than to silence anyone’s message.
A federal court has already put similar county rules on shaky ground. In 2021, a judge found several St. Louis County code provisions that regulated roadside solicitation unconstitutional and awarded damages to a man who sued the county. The Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse notes that Judge Stephen Limbaugh severed portions of the peddlers and traffic codes and ordered roughly $150,000 in damages. That earlier ruling serves as a reminder that any new ordinance will have to be crafted with particular care to avoid the same constitutional pitfalls.
County Councilman Michael Archer, who floated comparable language last year, told local TV that the focus this time is safety and outreach instead of punishment. “It’s going to prohibit people from walking in the lanes, it’s going to prohibit people on the medians,” Archer said in a KTVI report syndicated on Yahoo. According to that report, Archer expects county police would issue citations while county staff work on wording that is, in his words, “legally defensible.”
First Amendment advocates counter that broad crackdowns can easily sweep up a lot of legitimate speech. As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch notes, civil-liberties groups argue the plan risks stifling solicitation that courts have repeatedly treated as expressive conduct, and national organizations such as the ACLU have long maintained that peaceful panhandling is protected under the First Amendment. Legal observers say the ordinances that tend to survive court challenges are the ones narrowly tailored to address specific unsafe conduct, not the content of a person’s appeal for help.
According to the local report, the proposal could be introduced at a County Council meeting, kicking off a process that typically involves multiple readings and votes before any measure can become law. County Council meetings are held in the Lawrence K. Roos Building at 41 S. Central Ave., Clayton, where members of the public can sign up to speak on agenda items. Residents who want to weigh in are advised to monitor the council’s agenda page for meeting dates, times, and public-comment procedures.
Legal Hurdles Ahead
Any new restriction on roadside solicitation is likely to draw rapid legal scrutiny in light of the 2021 decision that struck down earlier county rules. Civil-liberties groups and defense attorneys say the key legal test will be whether the ordinance zeroes in on clearly dangerous behavior in narrowly defined situations instead of broadly curbing expressive solicitation that courts have repeatedly treated as protected speech.
