New Panhandling Law Quietly Takes Effect

Don’t look now, but here comes that mumbling mountain man again, pushing his loaded-down shopping cart along the Venice Beach boardwalk, stabbing a muscular finger into the lotion-laden summer air.

Just like always, he’s got his dog on a short leash, and it’s still wearing that miniature clown’s uniform. With quick meandering little steps, the animal is following the cart, which holds a 20-gallon aquarium filled with small, minnow-size fish.

The mountain man, his longish beard a salty gray, eyes the crowded outdoor cafe. Then, like a Shakespearean actor sensing the mercurial mood of his audience, he launches into his strange, sun-addled soliloquy.

“I love you!” he calls in the direction of 100 or so diners who work on their burger-and-French-fry lunches in the afternoon warmth. Several swivel their heads in his direction, carefully avoiding eye contact.

It’s the first day of a new Los Angeles ordinance against aggressive panhandling, a citywide measure that took effect last week, outlawing just what the mountain man is now about to do: zealously solicit money.

The key here is being aggressive, the new law says. It means hanging around automated teller machines and freeway exit ramps, approaching people at places where they take a momentary breather from their busy lives. It means following them on the street, using foul language and being reluctant to take no for an answer.

Or, if you’re the mountain man, hitting people up right here at this boardwalk cafe, where they’re lined up like deep-pocketed ducks, just begging to be begged from.

If you’re looking for a lesson of life from the first week under the new law, it may well be this: Don’t expect a cop to wander by, and don’t be surprised if he doesn’t intervene in this subtle dance between the haves and have-nots.

The mountain man is encouraged. “I don’t know you,” he tells the cafe’s diners, “but I love you!” He raises his voice, swiping both hands at the sky as boardwalk passersby instinctively give him a wide berth. “If I got to know you, I might even like you!”

Now nearly everyone is looking.

“I’ve got homeless fish here and I’m selling them for a dollar each,” he says. “Got some piranhas in here, too.” He reaches into the aquarium and then suddenly yanks his hand back. “Owwwwww!”

His audience laughs. The mountain man has them right where he wants them. So looking over his shoulder, and seeing not a cop in sight, he walks over to the row of tables lined up along the boardwalk and begins soliciting for change.

He moves down the row, from table to table, a panhandling politician looking for hands to shake down. He pauses to stare at one diner’s half-eaten burger.

“You gonna finish that?” he asks.

Just then, a Los Angeles Police Department officer on a bicycle rides past. The mountain man flinches. But the uniformed officer sails right on past without even looking.

Still, David Traxler isn’t ready to give up ground so easily.

Traxler, the boxy Midwestern bouncer at the cafe, is in the mountain man’s face.

“Move along,” he says. “You can’t panhandle here.”

The mountain man takes several steps back, then begins mumbling to himself. “This ain’t panhandling,” he says, motioning to his fish. “This here’s a donation.”

During this first week of the law, many officers were not even aware of the new panhandling restrictions.

“I didn’t even know the new law was in effect, that’s how much attention it’s getting,” said Brent Honore, an LAPD senior lead officer at Venice Beach. “So far, there’s been no direction from department higher-ups. It hasn’t even been mentioned in roll calls. We definitely need some word to trickle down through the ranks.”

Police Cmdr. Dan Watson, the point man in the department’s effort to gear up for the law, says an operations order detailing the ordinance only has to be signed by Chief Bernard C. Parks before it will be circulated to officers this week.

Watson knew of no panhandling arrests during the first week of the law and warned the public not to expect a rash of citations as officers get up to speed on the ordinance. There won’t be wholesale police sweeps of beggars either, he said.

Rather, as it has been in other cities such as Santa Monica, which passed a similar ordinance several years ago, the law will be used as one of several tools in the effort to stop panhandling--a program that includes officer warnings and public education.

During the first year of Santa Monica’s ordinance, Watson said, police made only six panhandling arrests. “Citations will be our last resort,” he said, “and we’ll use them only until the people who panhandle understand that we’re serious.”

Citations will cost panhandlers $50, a fine that goes up with each offense. After reaching a threshold of three to five, offenders can be sentenced to up to six months in jail and receive a $500 fine, according to Ted Goldstein, a spokesman for the city attorney’s office.

Venice Beach Chamber of Commerce President Carol Tantau-Smith doesn’t believe that the law will cure a panhandling situation she says has been “a persistently annoying problem.”

“But now, instead of having to catch a panhandler with an open container or breaking some other law to stop the begging, you can get to the root of the problem,” said Tantau-Smith, who owns a Venice gift shop. “What my customers object to is a panhandler in their face. And now that is illegal. It will give the police more teeth, an easier way to deal with things.”

While the law says panhandlers can’t follow people once they’ve solicited them, can’t touch them, block their path or use profanity, it doesn’t rule out begging entirely.

“This ordinance does not say you cannot ask for a handout,” said Noelia Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for Mayor Richard Riordan, who helped work for the law’s passage. “What it says is it’s not cool to hustle people for a handout. People should not have to be afraid or intimidated by strangers they pass on the street.”

*

That is exactly how bouncer Traxler sees it. In addition to his hosting duties for the boardwalk cafe, he is the bulldog who chases off beggars. The human fly swatter.

Notice the cartoon on the front of the cafe’s menu, he says. Look at the skateboarder, the skater and the dog-walker. You don’t see any panhandlers included there, do you? he demands.

In a little less than a year at the cafe, a world-weary Traxler has seen it all: bums reaching right down with their hands to scoop at a pile of spaghetti off somebody’s plate, making off with a tip or even an entire bill.

He once saw a woman diner open her umbrella in a panhandler’s face to make him go away.

The problem is that the cafe’s outer tables abutting the boardwalk are Bum Central. Panhandlers and other miscreants can walk past and stare right down atop the succulent steaks and the Jack Kerouac omelets.

But the cafe has its regulars. Like Bonehead, nicknamed for his penchant for doing so many stupid things, such as standing outside the cafe, taunting the bouncers until they call the cops to haul him away. Bonehead goes to jail, but he’s right back hours later.

Sometimes, Traxler says, Bonehead stands by diners, making funny gyrations with his face to make people laugh and throw money, like some trained seal. Or he asks for money to “help send a young Jewish boy to school” or “bail my wife out of jail.”

Then there’s the guy in the loud orange jumpsuit and the tattered old shirt that reads, “If You Don’t Like My Attitude, Quit Talking to Me.” He’s standing there now, shadowboxing with the light post--kicking, punching, head-knocking. Bouncers say he sometimes makes a sweep of the tables for tips, but today he just moves on.

This daily drama gets played out just beyond the cafe’s red and white awning, across from a clear blue sea, shimmering sand and impromptu boardwalk booths advertising Tarot counseling and “Psychic Cherokee Indian and knuckle readings.”

All the while, the jukebox inside at the bar belts out blues and rock songs, including Aretha Franklin asking for R-E-S-P-E-C-T, just a little respect.

Oh, wait, here comes the deaf guy now.

*

Dressed in blue sweatpants, he walks up to a cafe table, saying nothing, plaintively holding a slip of paper that reads: “Excuse me, please. Any quarters or dollar. Thank you.”

Sure, the guy wouldn’t harm a fly. But Traxler’s got a job to do. He walks toward the panhandler, waving his hands in the international sign of “Don’t do that. Please go away.”

“You’re bothering those people,” he says to no one in particular.

Diner Matt Quirin, a Santa Barbara college student, agrees. He says the panhandling law is a good thing: “I’m eating my lunch. I don’t want to be bugged by people like that.”

Janine Wolf, sitting at a nearby table, disagrees: “It’s a stupid law. I think there are more important things to concentrate on than panhandling. Just say no to these people. You don’t need any law to do that.”

Cafe employee David Saxon makes a living from saying no to panhandlers, chasing away bums who insist on pointing at and touching people’s food. “Many of them are just unclean, irritating people,” he says.

“I just shoo them away. I don’t see the point of having a discussion with them. Law or no law, people who have nothing or who don’t have the proper medical treatment are always going to come back, the have-nots asking for a little something from the haves.”

Now the afternoon is wearing thin. The lunchtime crowd is gone, and the before-dinner snack types are cruising in.

With them comes the Old Man, the salty old soul with the watery eyes who sneaks up to beg from tables when Traxler’s back is turned.

He approaches a table and politely asks for a handout.

Immediately, Traxler is there.

The Old Man retreats, undeterred. No, he hasn’t heard about any new anti-panhandling law.

Will it make any difference? Not as he sees it.

“I’m not aggressive,” comments 73-year-old James Ashby, who says he is a retired electrician from Culver City. Now he’ll just have to look twice before taking any boardwalk leap for spare change.

“I don’t bother people, I ask nicely,” Ashby says. “Now why would they want to go passing a law against something as simple as that?”