Panhandling and Charity Soliciting in the City of Thousand Oaks

Case law is complex and dynamic with respect to soliciting’s relation to freedom of speech and private property rights. California is one of a handful of places where the State Supreme Court interprets freedom of speech broadly enough to include in-person soliciting in privately owned malls, which are considered “public forums.” The US Supreme Court has upheld the State’s right to this broad interpretation. These facts do not seem to be widely known outside the legal and public-safety communities. (FA-01, FA-02, FA-03, FA-04, FA-05, FA-06, FA-07, FA-08, FA-09, FA-10) (Att-02)

Within general State directives, individual police departments and city councils are free to develop their own specific policies and procedures regarding both aggressive and nonaggressive panhandling. These policies and procedures can vary significantly from city to city. (FA-11, FA-12, FA- 13, FA-14, FA-15, FA-16, FA-21, FA-22, FA-23, FA-24, FA-25, FA-26)

The Sheriff’s Office and its officers serving in the TOPD have an accurate understanding of the legal issues surrounding soliciting in public places. Soliciting in Thousand Oaks The police respond appropriately given the City’s commitment to open- minded, collaborative, community-oriented approaches involving public education and social services. Public-safety personnel are proactive on this issue, and the Grand Jury found no evidence that directives embodied in State laws or County or City ordinances were being ignored. (FA-22, FA- 23, FA-24, FA-25, FA-26)

Opinions vary widely about how many panhandlers are homeless. Local factors, social and environmental, no doubt are major determinants. Since understanding the factors that contribute to local panhandling is key for effectively managing the issue, the City could benefit from additional data collection and analysis. (FA-16, FA-17)

Residents responding to the City’s two latest Community Attitude Surveys did not mention either “charity soliciting” or “panhandling” as a concern. However, homelessness” did show up on both surveys—as the 16th concern in 2013 and the 9th concern in 2015. Since many people believe most panhandlers are homeless, some survey respondents may be mentally combining the two issues. (FA-17, FA-32)

Respondents to the City’s two latest Community Attitude Surveys rated the quality of life in Thousand Oaks as very high, leading to the conclusion that a majority of residents believe public-safety personnel are doing a good job of handling soliciting and other quality-of-life concerns. (FA-36) Polite placement: A charity solicitor’s station is set up against the far curb, across the drive-lane in front of Whole Foods market in the shopping center on Moorpark Road. (Grand Juror photo taken 11/22/14) Recommendations

Courts in New Jersey, Colorado, Massachusetts (to a limited degree), and Puerto Rico have since adopted similarly “expansive” free speech rulings. [Ref-07, Ref-14, Ref-15]

Along with free speech, private property rights, defined by common law rather than the Constitution, have been often cited in debates about the legality of public soliciting—especially with regard to property owners’ “right to prohibit trespass.” (“Common law” is primarily based on legal decisions already made in similar cases rather than on statutes.) [Ref-09, Ref-16, Ref-17, Ref-18, Ref-19, Ref-20] Soliciting in Thousand Oaks 5

Pruneyard established the State’s authority to deny property owners’ right to prohibit trespass to solicitors if their property was “equivalent to a traditional public forum”—a phrase that in California includes shopping malls. [Ref-06, Ref-07, Ref-09, Ref-13, Ref-16, Ref-17, Ref-19]

The Pruneyard decision has undergone numerous legal challenges, but so far State courts have reaffirmed it—with these notable clarifications: (1) In Golden Gateway Center v. Golden Gateway Tenants Assn. (2001), a 4–3 majority of the California First District Appellate Court decided for various reasons that California's free speech right does not apply to private apartment complexes. [Ref-08] (2) In 2010 a 20-year legal dispute between Los Angeles International Airport and the Hare Krishna religious group ended when the State Supreme Court decided against the Krishnas on the basis that an airport, unlike shopping malls, was not a “public forum.” [Ref-18] (3) In April 2012 a California appeals court found in favor of Ralph’s Market in El Segundo in its attempt to bar members of the Missionary Church of the Disciples of Christ from soliciting donations in front of its store. The court decided that “the rulings which compel shopping malls to allow solicitation do not apply to a single [stand-alone] retail store.” [Ref-20] Note: One example of case law is given above for each significant clarification, though others exist.

Federal and state constitutional laws and local ordinances require that soliciting must be nonaggressive and that free-speech rights must be “reasonably exercised.” Aggressive panhandling is illegal. “Aggressive begging…is uncommon panhandling, a type of harassment bordering on extortion that is practiced by a minority of street people." [Ref-12, Ref-13, Ref-17, Ref-19, Ref-20, Ref-21, Ref-22]

The State Penal Code specifies that a person is “guilty of disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor,…who accosts other persons in any public place or in any place open to the public for the purpose of begging or soliciting alms.” [Emphasis added.] [Ref-23]

The State Penal Code gives classifications of and sentences for mis- demeanors but does not stipulate how public-safety personnel should respond. [Ref-24, Ref-25]

Nationwide studies have shown that local law enforcement efforts toward quality-of-life incidents, including public soliciting, fall into two broad categories: compassion and criminalization, also called sympathetic and unsympathetic. [Ref-10, Ref-21, Ref-26]

“The traditional approach to quality of life crimes is to create as many laws as possible to outlaw the activities of the poor and homeless and to increase enforcement.” This has been called “criminalizing poverty.” [Ref-10, Ref- 21, Ref-26, Ref-27, Ref-28] 6 Soliciting in Thousand Oaks

According to the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing, a public-safety think-tank, “Understanding the factors that contribute to your panhandling problem will help you frame your own local analysis questions, determine good effectiveness measures, recognize key intervention points, and select appropriate responses.” [Ref-26] Pass on by: Signs are a popular way to deter soliciting. This one, outside the Best Buy store in Village Square mall on Moorpark Road in Thousand Oaks, advises customers, “If you wish to discourage solicitors from interrupting your shopping experience, we suggest you simply ignore them.” (Grand Juror photo taken 11/22/14)

“Many studies have found that only a small percentage of homeless people panhandle, and only a small percentage of panhandlers are homeless.” Other sources assert the opposite. A San Francisco business district did its own local survey and came to the conclusion that 80% of panhandlers in its area were indeed homeless. [Ref-26, Ref-27]

Currently no County ordinances regulate access to public areas for soliciting. If passed in the future, such an ordinance would apply only to County unincorporated areas, not to areas within cities. [Ref-29]

The City of Thousand Oaks has more than 128,000 residents and is located in the southern portion of Ventura County. The City is a “general law city,” meaning that it has not adopted a charter, is organized by California State law, and is managed by a five-member City Council responsible for enacting local ordinances. [Ref-30, Ref-31]

The City contracts with the County Sheriff's Office for law-enforcement services. A City webpage devoted to its police department reads, “Thousand Oaks is a leader in the development of proactive law enforcement strategies and prevention programs, all intended to keep our community safe and to maintain the quality of life our residents expect…Thousand Oaks provides specialized services in response to community concerns and input….” [Ref- 32, Ref-33] Soliciting in Thousand Oaks 7

The City does not require solicitors on private property, including the privately owned local malls, to register or have licenses. [Ref-34]

The Thousand Oaks Municipal Code (Code) has detailed sections that regulate soliciting: - The Code does not consider unaggressive begging (passive panhandling), soliciting, or occupying of travel corridors on private property a violation for those who have permission: “Any conduct in public places that are privately owned where such conduct is in conformity with permission granted by the owner of said premises or by the person entitled to the possession of said premises.” [Ref-35] - For aggressive soliciting, no person shall be cited unless she or he continues to beg “after having been notified by a law enforcement officer that the conduct violates” the Code. Even if a shopper or store manager has complained, an officer may not cite the solicitor who cooperates with the officer’s first-time request to desist. [Ref-36]

The Code is worded so as to leave enforcement up to the discretion of public-safety officers: “Upon determining that a provision of this code has been violated, an enforcement officer has the authority to issue a civil penalty citation to any responsible person.” In other words, an officer can, but is not required to, cite a violator. [Ref-36]

The City has ongoing programs to address soliciting: - The TOPD partners with local social services organizations to promote the message "Make Your Spare Change Count." The campaign urges residents, via a brochure and website page, to help by donating to local support agencies instead of to solicitors. [Ref-32, Ref-37] - A program called Community Oriented Policing and Problem Solving (COPPS) “focuses on establishing community/police partnerships to solve neighborhood problems and to reduce the incidence of crime. This team of experienced officers will respond to community concerns by conducting a thorough analysis to identify the root causes of each situation. They follow- up by involving other service providers, including expert City staff, to seek a resolution that enhances the quality of life in each affected neighbor- hood.” [Ref-32] - The TOPD manages a “Business Watch” program that offers business owners/managers free help “dealing with panhandlers and other loiterers who scare off customers,” as well as help with more serious offenses. [Ref-38]

A Sheriff’s deputy working for the TOPD told a reporter, “We’ve been lucky [panhandlers] are not violent and they usually take no for an answer. When a new one pops up, we go introduce ourselves and let them know the rules so they don’t harass people.” [Ref-39]

Aggressive (illegal) panhandling in Thousand Oaks is not tolerated. Sheriff Geoff Dean has written, “[M]any communities have local ordinances that 8 Soliciting in Thousand Oaks prohibit aggressive panhandling. Deputies continue to respond to these calls and enforce ordinances, where they legally apply, whenever such situations occur.” [Ref-13, Ref-19, Ref-22, Ref-35, Ref-39]

Most pedestrians interviewed by Grand Jurors in malls were not seriously bothered by solicitors and said solicitors were not aggressive. Several pedestrians reported feeling guilty for not donating even when solicitors were polite; several expressed sympathy for the solicitors’ plights. (Att-01, Att-02)

Solicitors with whom jurors spoke regard Thousand Oaks shopping mall patrons as affluent. “Diners and grocery shoppers are good targets because dining and grocery shopping remind them of the contrast between their relative wealth and panhandlers’ apparent poverty.” [Ref-24] (Att-02)

With one exception, business owners and/or managers in malls interviewed by Grand Jurors did not mention soliciting as a concern until prompted. All but one said they were not much bothered by solicitors and agreed that most were cooperative and unaggressive. One manager mentioned a radical political group whose members were uncooperative, but they drove into the City only once or twice a year, so the manager considered them a minor problem. (Att-03, Att-04)

Business owners and/or managers interviewed are likely to take action (e.g., asking a solicitor to move, calling the police or a security guard) only when customers complain or business is being disrupted. [Ref-26] (Att-02)

Some City malls and/or store owners post signs advising shoppers/ pedestrians that they do not endorse soliciting. [See photos pages 2 & 6.] Saving the spot: A solicitor takes a break from seeking donations, leaving various possessions just outside the barrier posts of the Best Buy store on Moorpark Road in Thousand Oaks. (Grand Juror photo taken 11/23/14)

In a two-part 2013 Community Attitude Survey, the City’s residents were asked, “If the City government could change one thing to make Thousand Oaks a better place to live now and in the future, what change would you Soliciting in Thousand Oaks 9 like to see?” In Part One, conducted by phone to 400 randomly chosen residents, “Address homelessness issue” ranked as number 16 out of 25 concerns, mentioned by 1.5% of respondents. In Part Two, conducted online, “Address homelessness issue” ranked as number 9 out of 25 on the list of concerns, mentioned by 3% of those surveyed. No respondents mentioned soliciting as the one thing they would like to see changed. [Ref- 40, Ref-41] A similar 2015 survey was in process at the time of this writing; in the completed phone portion of the survey, soliciting again was not mentioned by anyone, while homelessness ranked number 9 out of 20 concerns, mentioned by 3.7% of those surveyed. Online results were not yet available. [Ref-42]

The County Sheriff is aware of soliciting issues and has written about them on the editorial page of a local newspaper with the heading “Trespassing is not always easy to recognize” (also posted on the Sheriff’s Office website with the title “Panhandling not prohibited at shopping centers”). [Ref-13, Ref-19]

A review of all press releases issued by the Sheriff’s Office during the past 16 months showed that none dealt with panhandling/soliciting in Thousand Oaks. [Ref-43]

The Grand Jury’s analysis of 2014 TOPD call-logs for seven months when soliciting typically occurs (e.g., summer, holiday times) revealed no calls asking for police service on that subject.

In the City’s two most recent Community Attitude Surveys, 96% and 97% of respondents, respectively, rated the City’s quality of life as “excellent” or “good.” [Ref-40, Ref-41, Ref-42] Findings