Panel to Vote on Limiting LAX Solicitors to Kiosks

On a blustery May day, Melissa Jones and her colleagues from One Nation Under God are busy pocketing $1, $2 and even $5 donations from passengers they approach outside the Southwest Airlines baggage claim at Los Angeles International Airport.

Meanwhile, Erinne Johnson can’t do more than lean over a black Formica desk in the United Airlines terminal at San Francisco International Airport as she attempts to wave passengers over to hear her spiel about St. John Coltrane African Orthodox Church. Few give money.

Jones, who has relatively free rein at LAX, soon may find herself in Johnson’s position, or at least sharing similar restrictions.

The Airport Commission today will consider a city ordinance that would restrict solicitors to kiosks in each of LAX’s nine terminals. The law, patterned after a policy in use at Bay Area airports, is the latest attempt in a 28-year struggle by the city agency that operates LAX to rein in panhandlers at the world’s third-busiest airport.

The proposed law would require charitable organizations to obtain a monthly permit from the airport designating the days, times and booth locations in which they could solicit money. Only one organization would be allowed to use a booth at a given time.

Solicitors would be allowed to approach passengers with printed material, but could not ask for money unless they were sitting in the booth, the ordinance says. LAX officials could revoke a group’s permit if it violated detailed rules of conduct set out in the ordinance.

Currently, organizations must obtain an information card from the city each year if they plan to solicit on city property. Five groups have information cards that allow them to raise money at LAX--although city officials suspect some ask for donations without proper identification. In contrast, 23 groups received permits to solicit in San Francisco International Airport’s booths in May.

It’s difficult to discern how much money organizations raise at LAX--although officials believe it’s a lucrative location, based in part on imprecise financial reports that soliciting groups are required to file with the city.

From July 1, 2000, to June 30, 2001, groups soliciting at the airport and on other city property raised anywhere from $9,410 (One Nation Under God) to $359,184 (International Society for Krishna Consciousness of California).

Airport officials argue that the proposed law is necessary because solicitors at LAX contribute to crowding by stopping passengers to ask for money. Fund-raisers also distract travelers from important security information, they add.

“Frequent travelers comment to us that they encounter more aggressive solicitation here than they see at other airports,” said Paul Haney, an airport spokesman.

The airport agency hopes the ordinance, if approved by the commission and the City Council, will withstand legal challenges that have stymied numerous efforts by the city to control solicitation at LAX.

A series of anti-soliciting regulations and laws enacted since 1974 met challenges by civil liberties lawyers, each of which the city eventually lost, including one case before the California Supreme Court and another before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Last summer, a federal judge deemed unconstitutional a 1997 city ordinance that prohibited solicitation inside the airport’s terminals, on its sidewalks or in parking lots. The city has appealed the decision. In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Consuelo B. Marshall left the door open for airport officials to restrict the “time, place and manner” in which solicitors can ask for money, if the restrictions are narrowly tailored. The airport agency hopes the proposed law meets this standard.

But advocates for local groups say the proposed law restricts free speech and would not stand up in court. San Francisco International Airport’s 20-year-old policy has never been legally challenged.

“The ordinance restricts solicitors to where they’re not able to effectively reach people they’re trying to contact,” said David Liberman, an attorney for the International Society of the Krishna Consciousness of California. “Everything I’ve seen so far points directly and inexorably toward further litigation.”

The Hare Krishnas, together with the Committee for Human Rights in Iran, sued in federal court and obtained a restraining order against Los Angeles that barred it from enforcing the 1997 no-soliciting ordinance. Liberman said his clients would prefer multiple booths in each terminal in prime locations. The airport agency has not determined the locations for the booths.

Solicitors working the terminals at LAX recently agreed with Liberman. “If they put us behind booths, it would slow things down,” said Joe Douglas, who was working alongside Jones outside Terminal No. 1 raising money for One Nation Under God. “If I have $100 in $1 bills, it usually means I asked 1,000 people.”

Douglas, whose colleagues held clipboards with maps of LAX glued to the backside, said solicitors “provide a service” by giving passengers directions. But some travelers were caught off-guard by a request for donations after solicitors provided assistance. Salt Lake City resident Cody Patterson gave Jones $1 after she sold him a stamp.

“I was a missionary, so I’ve been on that side,” he said. “It’s a public place with public access, so asking for money is OK, as long as it’s not deceptive.”

At San Francisco International Airport, passengers stop and ask Johnson for flight information, even though there’s a sign in front of the desk she’s sitting behind that declares, “This is not an airport information booth.... “

Passengers who listened to Johnson’s pitch say they appreciated the distance the booth provides.

“It’s not quite as intrusive this way,” said Robert Gourbana, who stopped to hear Johnson out. Gourbana said he would come back after he checked in for his flight to Chicago. He never returned.