Asheville police recommend city expand areas where verbal panhandling is illegal

ASHEVILLE - Police Chief Mike Lamb presented panhandling and pedestrian-motor vehicle accident data to a city safety committee June 25 that he said shows the need for expanding the areas in the city where verbal panhandling is illegal. But some city officials and members of the public questioned whether the methodology and data results actually supported that conclusion.

The data compared how many calls for service regarding panhandlers APD received and how many pedestrian motor vehicle accidents occurred in the same area. The information was much like data presented in July 2023, when city officials were considering substantive changes to Asheville’s solicitation ordinance, which were later put on pause.

In 2023, APD received 560 panhandling calls for service. Lamb said areas with a high number of these calls – such as Patton Avenue, Merrimon Avenue and Smokey Park Highway – also saw 13% of pedestrian vehicle crashes in 2023.

What data was presented?

About 17% of pedestrian crashes occurred within 25 feet of a reported panhandling location in 2023, and 75% occurred within 500 feet, Lamb said.

The area with the most calls was along Patton Avenue in West Asheville, with a total of 103 reports for panhandling. That same area had two vehicle accidents involving pedestrians last year, according to APD data.

On Smokey Park Highway, there were 38 panhandling calls and one pedestrian motor vehicle accident. There were three pedestrian accidents at certain high-panhandling areas on Haywood Road and Merrimon Avenue, which had 40 and 10 panhandling calls, respectively.

Yet, other areas such as south of downtown showed a high density of vehicle-pedestrian collisions but aren’t considered areas with a lot of panhandling activity.

“Before issues of panhandling have intensified, all those corridors that have been identified have had high pedestrian collisions for over a decade,” Mike Sule, president of Asheville on Bikes, previously told the Citizen Times when APD’s first round of panhandling-pedestrian accident data came out.

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Why is APD collecting this data?

This discussion comes after new “technical” amendments to the city’s long-standing solicitation ordinance were passed by city council in September to “create specificity” and bring the code into compliance with then-recent U.S. Supreme Court Rulings, City Attorney Brad Branham previously said.

The city had been discussing further panhandling limitations, including regulating vehicle-goers' ability to give to panhandlers, but announced they’d be pausing any further changes to the ordinance in a Sept. 26 Environment and Safety Committee meeting, after a receiving a negative response from the community.

In that same meeting, Branham said APD would be collecting data to analyze the effectiveness of the amendments, pinpoint trends and “see if any additional legislative action would be necessary.”

More: Updated Asheville ordinance may restrict giving to panhandlers; lawyers, panhandlers react

This Environment and Committee Safety meeting was “information only,” meaning no motion or recommendation was passed on to be discussed or voted on at City Council.

Yet, Lamb said APD recommends adding what are called “high traffic zones” to Patton Avenue, Haywood Road and South Tunnel Road, as well as expanding a current zone in downtown to include sections of Merrimon Avenue and South Slope.

That’s despite panhandling calls for service having dropped 40% so far this year compared to 2024, according to APD data.

More: Asheville pauses further panhandling restrictions; data shows calls fell in last 3 years

What does 'high-traffic zone' mean? Are panhandlers getting into these accidents?

Under Asheville’s solicitation ordinance, it’s illegal to verbally beg, solicit or panhandle within any high-traffic zone, though panhandling with a sign is allowed.

There are currently two areas in Asheville designated as high-traffic zones: portions of the central business district and Biltmore Village Historic District. Within the downtown high-traffic zone, there were 24 panhandling calls for service in 2023 and eight motor vehicle accidents in 2023, according to APD date.

In Biltmore Village, there were 10 calls for panhandling and no pedestrian collisions. The only public commenter to speak in the meeting, Patrick Conant, said this shows “the high traffic zones we have defined don’t seem to be supported by data.”

“We really don’t know if these things are correlated, or if we’re just looking at data on a map and they’re happening in the same place,” Conant said. “I would also ask if APD truly has the capacity and resources to go up and down Haywood Road to ensure no one is speaking.”

Conant said, as he walks on Haywood Road nearly every day, he doesn’t see officers on the street and would “rather see them doing community policing activities rather than enforcing the solicitation ordinance.”

Committee Chair Maggie Ullman posed a similar question on correlation, asking if the data shows those who are being struck are panhandlers or if “you’re just correlating that there’s more unsafety in the area because people are in the roadway.”

Lamb said he didn’t have percentages or numbers for how many of these accidents involved panhandlers, but there were “a few crashes” involving active panhandlers, namely on Brevard Road. He’s also seen accidents occur between two vehicles when someone remains stopped at a green light to pass out money.

“There's so many different factors that come into play with these collisions,” Lamb said. “So, I think that's a small part of it, but ... there's so many other factors involved as well.”

Ryley Ober is the Public Safety Reporter for Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Email her at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @ryleyober

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Asheville police advise expanding where verbal panhandling is illegal