What is Greenwood waiting on to repeal a panhandling ban that the city has not enforced in decades, if at all, and that its current officials say they have no plans to enforce in the future?
The city has been on notice for almost a year that if it doesn’t remove this probably unconstitutional ordinance from its books, it’s going to wind up in court.
That would be a waste of legal fees.
The track record is pretty clear. In the four years since a federal appeals court ruled that an Illinois city could not prohibit poor people from asking for donations, almost 70 towns and cities have either had similar panhandling bans struck down by the courts or they have voluntarily erased them to avoid litigation, according to the count of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is pushing the issue.
Greenwood got its second warning letter this past week from the ACLU. It would be foolish to wait for a third.
