CLAYTON — A St. Louis County councilman plans to introduce a measure that would prohibit panhandling on roadways, a move that has been struck down before as a violation of free speech rights.
Republican Councilman Mike Archer, of unincorporated south St. Louis County, said his measure will focus on public safety instead of panhandling in the hopes it could survive a legal challenge.
“It’s more of the safety aspect of it that we are focusing on,” Archer said. “Then a judge is probably going to balance that with the First Amendment.”
Archer said he has heard of a handful of instances in which homeless people were injured when panhandling in local roadways. He said he was not sure when he would introduce a bill to the rest of the council, which meets Tuesday evening.
Archer acknowledged his measure could meet legal resistance, but said he hears complaints from constituents about homeless people panhandling.
“It has been percolating for awhile,” Archer said.
In 2021, a federal judge struck down multiple St. Louis County ordinances used to target panhandlers, saying the laws violated First Amendment rights to free speech. One of those barred people from standing in a roadway for the purposes of soliciting.
U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr. awarded $150,000 to Robert Fernandez, a homeless man who had been arrested several times for violating county panhandling ordinances. The judge also awarded $138,515 toFernandez’s attorneys.
In 2023, Archer’s predecessor, former Councilman Ernie Trakas, introduced a measure that largely would have banned people from standing or walking in county roadways for safety reasons. Emails showed Trakas’ proposal was an attempt to limit panhandling.
Councilwoman Lisa Clancy, a Democrat from Maplewood, said the bill unfairly targeted homeless people. Within a few days, joggers, walkers, people with disabilities and pedestrian safety groups said the bill would unfairly target them too.
County Executive Sam Page vetoed Trakas’ bill after the local branch of the American Civil Liberties Union said it was “a clear attempt to target already marginalized groups, namely, the unhoused.”
The county had an ordinance to address the issue, Trakas said in the email, but it was shut down by a federal judge, who said the law violated First Amendment rights to free speech.
It would have unfairly affected people with disabilities, among others, he said.
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Kelsey Landis | Post-Dispatch
St. Louis County government reporter
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