Lake Worth Beach settles lawsuit with four men arrested 200+ times on panhandling charges

Lake Worth Beach, the target of a federal lawsuit filed by four homeless people, has joined a growing number of cities throughout the nation that are paying settlements and walking back their anti-panhandling rules.

The city commission voted in February to approve a combined $75,000 total settlement with the four men. According to their lawsuit, they racked up thousands of dollars in court fees after being arrested more than 200 times combined — all for alleged violations of a panhandling ordinance.

Such rules, which prevent people from asking for money or other assistance in public areas, are a violation of the First Amendment, and they fail to address the root causes of homelessness, the suit argued.

“Peaceful requests for money do not inherently threaten public safety,” it said.

The commission revoked two ordinances last year, amid the ongoing lawsuit. One rule targeted panhandling near the right-of-way at certain intersections and interstate exits, while the other tried to prevent "aggressive panhandling" throughout the city.

The repeal followed a recommendation by Glen Torcivia, the city attorney, who sought to avoid a costly fight that Lake Worth Beach was likely to lose.

“Over the past year, a number of courts nationwide have struck down panhandling ordinances,” Torcivia said in a letter to commissioners last year. “The courts have generally established that ‘solicitation of charitable contributions is protected speech' under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

Lake Worth Beach followed in the footsteps of West Palm Beach and Ocala, which also paid legal fees and scrapped their own anti-panhandling ordinances.

Several nonprofit law firms were behind those lawsuits, including Gainesville-based Southern Legal Counsel. The firm joined forces with SPN Law in West Palm Beach to represent the men who sued Lake Worth Beach. 

“We will not stop fighting to protect the rights of Floridians whose local governments choose to arrest, fine and prosecute them rather than working toward actual solutions to the underlying social problems of those living in extreme poverty,” said lead attorney Simone Chriss, of Southern Legal Counsel.

Lawsuits against Lake Worth Beach argue panhandling is covered under the Constitution

The lawsuit against Lake Worth Beach said city streets, sidewalks and medians are public forums that hold a “special position in terms of First Amendment protection because of their historic role as places of discussion and debate."

And the issue with anti-panhandling rules, the suit said, is they discriminate against “charitable solicitation” by treating it differently than other types of speech.

“For example, a person could ask a driver for directions, but could not ask for a donation of food,” it said. “A person could offer to buy a passerby’s vehicle, but could not offer to sell that passerby a bottle of water.”

Likewise, someone could face jail time for standing on the roadside with a sign that says, “Homeless anything helps,” but not for holding a sign that endorses a political candidate, the lawsuit continues.

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The city underscored a need to protect both drivers and pedestrians when it launched the right-of-way ordinance in 2017.  Lake Worth Beach also enacted the panhandling ordinance in 2014, pointing to an “increase in aggressive panhandling, begging and solicitation throughout the City.”

In response, the lawsuit said the city's reasoning was devoid of “statistics, data, studies, or reports to support their justifications.”

It also argued that existing laws are enough to protect the public without targeting panhandlers and infringing on their rights. Lake Worth Beach already has laws that focus on safety and, most importantly, that apply evenly to everyone, the lawsuit said.

That includes rules that prevent people from blocking traffic or selling goods on a right of way, along with rules against threatening or frightening others. 

Panhandling rules created climate of fear in Lake Worth Beach, suit says

One man who sued Lake Worth Beach said he “wants to feel visible” to others in the community, even if they had nothing to give.

Another plaintiff, who lived in the city for more than three decades, left to attend a 90-day shelter program in West Palm Beach. After completing the program and struggling to find affordable housing, he fell back on panhandling in Lake Worth Beach.

And a third person reportedly had to stop holding signs, including one that said, “Need help, need work,” to solicit jobs from truck drivers who were unloading deliveries at downtown businesses.

The lawsuit said Lake Worth Beach's former panhandling laws — enforced by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office until last year — resulted in a climate of fear, not only among the people who relied on panhandling to survive, but also among the people who wanted to help them.

All of the men had to weigh their need for donations of money, food, water, clothing and hygiene products with the consequences of being arrested.

And one plaintiff, the lawsuit said, was “notified by certain downtown businesses, who previously allowed him to solicit truck drivers that were making deliveries to them, that they were pressured by PBSO to no longer allow him to solicit on their private property.”

The sheriff's office, which stopped enforcing the city's panhandling laws in January 2022, declined to comment on the allegation, citing Lake Worth Beach's open court case.

And on Tuesday, pro bono attorney Sabarish Neelakanta, who worked on the case against the city, said the recent settlement is a reminder that panhandling laws are a poor use of government resources.

“Cities across the United States and around the world have devised many proven solutions to poverty and housing instability, and yet time and again, instead of researching and implementing these solutions, cities adopt unconstitutional ordinances and target the poor for enforcement, thinking it is the easy way out,” Neelakanta said.

“Such punitive approaches merely drive people further into homelessness,” he continued. “Ultimately, as many successful lawsuits against these cities have proven, they are not the easy way out.”

Panhandling settlement follows a national trend

Lawsuits throughout the country have led to similar outcomes the past several years.

• Two men in Grand Rapids, Michigan, secured a $48,000 settlement in 2013 after being arrested for panhandling and then filing suit, Michigan Live reported. “Jail time is a harsh price to pay for holding up a sign or simply asking for spare change,” an ACLU attorney said at the time.

• A homeless man in St. Louis County, Missouri, won a $150,000 judgment in 2021 after challenging the county’s law against asking drivers for money. The man wanted to survive without living in constant fear of being arrested, Fox 2 reported.

• And in Concord, New Hampshire, the city paid $89,000 to settle a woman's federal lawsuit in 2017. Police had cited the woman, a military veteran, for disorderly conduct after she started panhandling to make ends meet, according to CBS News.

Giuseppe Sabella is a reporter covering Boynton Beach and Lake Worth Beach at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at gsabella@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism and subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Lake Worth Beach settles federal panhandling lawsuit with four men