-Caveat Lector-
<http://www0.mercurycenter.com/world/worldwire/docs/1004401l.htm>
Posted at 7:35 a.m. PST Sunday, March 25, 2001
Spare change? not without the proper ID
CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Hey, buddy -- one of Canada's
richest cities could soon force its panhandlers to wear photo
identification as a way of controlling a handful of beggars who
hound passersby for spare change.
City council in Calgary, Alberta, the country's gleaming
oil-industry center, votes April 2 on the plan that would require
panhandlers to agree to a code of conduct before they are granted
ID badges allowing them to hit people up for coins and
cigarettes.
``It's intended to reduce any potential disruptive behavior or
harassment or confrontations with the public,'' said city
councilor Bob Hawkesworth, vice-chairman of the committee
studying the proposal.
The licensing scheme, based on the ID tags charity fund-raisers
wear when going door-to-door, would also require panhandlers to
undergo counseling and job-search workshops.
The western Canadian city of almost 900,000 people has relatively
few beggars compared with other major metropolitan areas. About
40 regulars are said to dot the downtown core, although numbers
swell in the summer. Only a fraction are known as aggressive.
Calgary passed a bylaw last year prohibiting panhandlers from
plying their trade near transit shelters or automatic teller
machines. This year, the committee sought other ways to tackle
the problem. It even held panhandler focus groups.
``That's the genesis of this idea. It came from those discussions
as another way to address the problem,'' Hawkesworth said.
Some panhandlers expressed skepticism over the plan.
``You give some a license or a card, that darn well won't stop
other guys from putting their hand out,'' David Young, 44, said
after extracting some change from a pedestrian on Friday.
``The panhandlers that do have a license, they're not going to
say, 'Hey, get out of here. We're calling the cops.' That's just
not done on the street,'' added Young, who said he had lived on
the streets of Calgary for 20 years.
One concern among city council members is that licensing may be
construed as condoning begging, Hawkesworth said.
``That's a reservation I have about this approach. This concept
suggests that we try it for a year and see if it has any good or
bad impact and evaluate it after a year.''
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