Canton City Council is on whether to repeal a panhandling ordinance that鈥檚 being called unconstitutional.
The to tell them their panhandling laws would not stand up to a legal challenge, and were unconstitutional. Canton鈥檚 law director reviewed the legislation with council last month, and agreed. Cleveland State University Law Professor Joe Mead is a volunteer attorney with the ACLU, and says of the ordinances that have actually gone to a court challenge since 2015, all of them have been struck down.
鈥淭he responses we鈥檝e received have acknowledged that there are problems with laws that single out solicitation for special restriction. And we鈥檝e gotten about a dozen cities that have taken action to repeal unconstitutional ordinances.鈥�
that have recently repealed similar ordinances is Twinsburg, while Youngstown officials are reviewing their law.
