Mayor Reed plans to get tougher with panhandlers

Mayor Kasim Reed vows to step up enforcement of anti-panhandling laws

He doesn’t want to call it a “crackdown,” but that’s what it sounds like — and it’ll come as welcome news to most folks who live or work downtown.

At Kasim Reed’s first press conference as mayor yesterday, he announced — after introducing interim Police Chief George Turner and the new APD structure — that he plans to vigorously enforce the city’s existing panhandling laws. The ATL’s many panhandlers, he says, are the number two complaint among visitors and a serious drag on downtown’s convention-based economy. (What’s the No. 1 complaint, you ask? That would be our city’s sucky nightlife.)

As you may recall, Mayor Franklin spearheaded the creation of a downtown “no-panhandling zone,” but the city has proved gun-shy about enforcement, possibly because of vocal criticism from homeless advocates.