Committee approves moving proposed expansion of solicitation (panhandling) high-traffic zones to full council

The Asheville Public Safety Committee voted unanimously July 31 to send a proposed expansion of the city’s public solicitation ordinance to the full City Council for consideration, after a lengthy public-comment period and a presentation from police on calls-for-service and pedestrian crashes.

The proposal would amend city ordinance 11-5 (public solicitation) to expand the existing high-traffic zone boundaries and add new high-traffic zones that Deputy Chief Sean Artema recommended include Patton Avenue (Regent Park to New Leicester Highway), the Haywood Road corridor, and South Tunnel Road; it would also expand Zone 1 to include parts of Merriman Avenue and the South Slope.

Supporters of the expansion, including Police Chief Mike Lam and Deputy Chief Artema, said the change is intended as a tool to reduce dangerous interactions between pedestrians and traffic and to give police discretion to enforce certain verbal solicitation in defined high-traffic areas. Artema told the committee that in the…