In an effort to curb charity that is having unintended consequences, the City Council has made it illegal to give food to homeless people in city parks.
Residents complained that the large numbers of homeless gathering in the parks make it impossible for others to use them, said city spokesman David Riggleman.
"We're trying to empathize with both camps," he said. "We're hoping we can improve their lives and improve the lives of people living around the park, some of whom have people urinating and defecating in front of their door."
Link.
This BYCU is primarily for my Thunderbird-drinking readers who wi-fi from city parks while relieving themselves in public.
The ACLU, incidentally, is saying the law is non-sensical and unenforceable because it defines a poor person as someone "whom a reasonable ordinary person would believe to be entitled to apply for or receive assistance." The ACLU might be correct, but as a practical matter, the law repeatedly resorts to the "reasonable man" standard, in torts (would a reasonable person have picked up the banana peel?), contracts (would a reasonable person understand the contract to mean X?), and criminal law (would a reasonable person consider that type of conduct disorderly?).
I suspect the ACLU doesn't like the law because they want people to be able (to have the freedom) to defecate and urinate in public. My suspicion might be inaccurate, but it's believable. They're extremists with no sense of balance. Our society needs freedom and order. They hate the "order" part.
