MLA Mayencourt wants province to get tough on panhandlers

By Mike Howell-Staff writer

Vancouver-Burrard Liberal MLA Lorne Mayencourt plans to introduce a private members' bill that would give police more power to arrest or move aggressive panhandlers and squeegee kids from busy public areas.

Citing an incident that occurred two weeks ago on Granville Street where a panhandler stabbed a man in the hand, Mayencourt said some panhandlers and squeegee kids are getting more aggressive in interactions with the public.

Though the emergence of crystal methamphetamine use by street kids on the Granville Mall-which can trigger paranoid, violent behaviour-could be a factor in the aggression, Mayencourt said many of the people causing the problems are well-known to police.

"There is a group that is extremely aggressive, prone to violence who are out on the streets and they are intimidating the heck out of seniors, gays and women walking their children to school," said Mayencourt, noting current laws don't give police enough power to make arrests.

Mayencourt is still drafting the bill in which he also plans to include stiffer penalties for trespassing. He's basing it on a law passed in November 1999 in Ontario, called the Safe Streets Act.

Under that Act, violators are liable to fines of $500 for the first offence and $1,000 fine and jail terms of up to six months for subsequent offences. Anti-poverty groups in Ontario called it an attack on the poor that stigmatized them as drug and alcohol abusers associated with prostitution and other social ills.

Mayencourt's proposed bill is getting the same reaction in Vancouver from Lisa Wulwik of End Legislated Poverty, who said the Liberals should be spending more time on examining why people are driven to panhandle.

Wulwik said the Liberals' continuing cuts and new rules that make getting welfare more difficult for street youth have made it almost impossible for the poor to earn a living. More legislation aimed at the poor will only worsen an already desperate situation, she said.

"It further criminalizes poverty," Wulwik said.

Vancouver police Insp. Dave Jones, who is in charge of policing the downtown core, isn't surprised by the comments of anti-poverty groups, but points out police nor Mayencourt are calling for an all-out ban on panhandling.

The focus, he said, is to make the streets safer for people, particularly for pedestrians and those people who don't use or own a vehicle in order to travel.

"It's not the guy in the Mercedes driving down the street who has to deal with a panhandler. It's the average person trying to get to and from work on the bus," said Jones, who describes the city's current panhandling bylaw as "pointless."

In March 2001, Jones said then-city council's decision to repeal an existing bylaw has triggered the increase in panhandlers and squeegee kids. The scrapped bylaw banned panhandling in front of banks, liquor stores, bus stops and at night. It also included a threat of a $2,000 fine.

At the time, police noticed a decrease in panhandlers in downtown Vancouver-not because more arrests were made, but because police directed panhandlers to shelters and medical services, and to where they were legally allowed to panhandle.

However, a month after it was introduced, various anti-poverty groups launched a challenge claiming it broke sections of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The bylaw was also labeled a constitutionally illegal attempt to impose criminal law, which the city had no authority to enact under the Vancouver Charter. The repeal was prompted after a similar bylaw in Winnipeg was scrapped because of a legal challenge.

Currently, Jones said police can write tickets to panhandlers and squeegee kids for soliciting business on a street, but finds the exercise "fruitless" because the people receiving the fines are unable to pay them.

"It seems somewhat improbable that we would go after fines from poor people. That's not what we want. We want something that will emphasize the importance of panhandling in a lawful way."

The new law should also include the threat of a person going to jail, if he or she doesn't comply with police, said Jones, noting this provision could act as a deterrent.

"We don't want to be arresting people, but if they know we can, they're going to stop."