No Alms for the ‘Panhasslers’ : Cities: San Diego cracks down on aggressive beggars who block paths and use threatening language. So far, 42 panhandlers have gone to jail.

Jimmy Church tries to earn a few bucks each day by dashing into the downtown streets and offering to wash the car windows of startled tourists and office workers.

But he says police in recent days have twice poured the contents of his spray bottle onto the ground and warned him to stop pestering people.

Church, 38, says he will continue hustling but in a more restrained manner. He does not want to get arrested and spend 72 hours in jail.

“It’s really bad, man,” he said, summarizing a tale of woe that includes chronic unemployment, a stab wound from a street rumble, swollen hands from sleeping on cold concrete and a new get-tough policy by San Diego police about panhandling.

In a crackdown announced before Christmas, San Diego police have arrested 42 of the most aggressive panhandlers and carted them off for a three-day, pre-arraignment stay at the city’s new jail. More arrests are likely.

San Diego has reached the limits of its tolerance with the increasingly pushy beggars near downtown restaurants and shops. A new piece of urban nomenclature has even been coined in San Diego: Panhassling.

Panhandling, the ancient practice of the meek seeking alms from the rich, is protected by the 1st Amendment. Even the police grudgingly accept panhandling as part of the cityscape.

No such acceptance exists for panhassling, a term first used by a San Diego television reporter and increasingly adopted by local politicians and civic boosters.

Panhassling is breaching the laws of civility, blocking the sidewalk until a tourist coughs up some change, following a suburban couple to their car and mumbling insults, or using a threatening voice in offering to “watch” a restaurant patron’s car.

Even Paule Luria, one of the city’s most recognizable panhandlers, believes that the crackdown is a good idea. She worries as much about the city’s image as any member of the Chamber of Commerce.

“I don’t think people should be hassled--it’s giving the city a bad reputation,” said Luria, 71, who panhandles from a sitting position a block from City Hall and the bustling downtown Horton Plaza shopping center. “This is a free country. But people should show restraint.”

“I can guarantee you (that) the word travels real fast on the streets,” said Councilman Ron Roberts, who represents downtown. After receiving complaints from restaurateurs and merchants, he goaded the Police Department to action.

Church says he is an out-of-luck Vietnam veteran who only panhandles to eat, though he has backed off from approaching cars.

“All I do is panhandle enough each day to get $4.80 to go to the all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant,” he said.

Police Officer Gordon Nikkola of a downtown walking team is skeptical of the I-only-beg-to-buy-food explanation.

“You can eat free six times a day (at downtown rescue kitchens),” Nikkola said. “These people aren’t looking for food. They’re looking for money to buy crack.”

Like other big cities, San Diego has alternated between the carrot and the stick for the homeless and panhandlers.

At the same time the crackdown was under way, the city opened its annual Christmas shelter for the homeless in an auditorium attached to City Hall.

The city funds a network of church-run shelters for the homeless, but the Legal Aid Society had to sue the City Council two years ago to stop police from confiscating the tattered belongings and shopping carts of street people.

Like other California cities, San Diego also has to contend with a 1991 federal court ruling that struck down the state’s century-old anti-panhandling law as an infringement of freedom of speech.

In San Francisco, voters in November responded by approving an ordinance to ban the most obnoxious forms of panhandling, including reaching out to touch or block pedestrians.

In San Diego, city prosecutors are using the San Diego Municipal Code and California Penal Code, which make it a misdemeanor to inhibit someone’s use of the street or sidewalk.

Meanwhile, Gino Robinson, 37, who panhandles when his monthly disability check has been spent, is unsure what to make of the changing mores of the street.

“I can’t talk bad about the cops because they’re not hassling me personally,” he said. “But I hear if they get your face in their head, it’s bad for you. It’s those aggressive guys on the street looking for easy money.

“They’re ruining it for the rest of us.”