Castle Rock – The Castle Rock Town Council banned street-corner panhandling Tuesday night, but not without weighing the impact to local charities.
Mayor Randy Reed said complaints about aggressive panhandlers are rising, and the town needs the ability to make them move on.
The ordinance makes panhandling at town intersections a misdemeanor that carries a fine of up to $1,000 and as much as a year in jail. The measure passed 5-2.
The town, however, cannot legally single out homeless people and carve out exceptions for others, including the town’s firefighters, who raise funds at intersections.
“It’s going to severely restrict the amount of money we raise for local residents stricken with muscular dystrophy,” said firefighter and paramedic Joe Dell.
Castle Rock firefighters’ “Fill the Boot” collections at intersections each Labor Day weekend have raised $200,000 for the national Muscular Dystrophy Association over the past decade, including $31,000 last year.
John Kimbrough said his son and son-in-law are firefighters but said firefighters are putting themselves at an unnecessary risk by collecting money in the streets.
“Don’t catch me at a red light and get my pocket change,” he said to firefighters in the audience. “Let me go home and get my checkbook, and I’ll give you a hundred dollars.”
The Castle Rock Fire Department surveyed the effect of such ordinances on “Fill the Boot” campaigns in other Colorado municipalities. After Wheat Ridge imposed a similar ban, collections fell from $28,478 in 2004, the year before the ban, to $3,871 after it passed. Longmont collections fell from $14,707 in 2003 to $5,434 in 2004.
Councilwoman Katie Kruger said she had not seen a problem with panhandling in Castle Rock.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 2.1 percent of Douglas County families live below the federal poverty level, compared with 10 percent statewide and 12 percent nationally.
But Kruger said the firefighters and the MDA could find a more productive fundraiser.
“I don’t learn anything about muscular dystrophy by rolling down my window and throwing change in a boot,” she said.
Castle Rock firefighters would still be able to collect in parks and parking lots.
Reed said he would personally collect donations to help them.
“I’ll collect money in a boot anywhere,” he said Tuesday afternoon, “except at an intersection.”
Staff writer Joey Bunch can be reached at 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com.
