In a 4-4 vote May 24, the Seattle City Council sustained Mayor Mike McGinn's veto of a panhandling ordinance that would have allowed the police to issue $50 tickets to aggressive beggars.
Real Change, the ACLU, NAACP and other organizations had argued that the ordinance, proposed by Tim Burgess, chair of the council's Public Safety Committee, would have given the police a blank check to move along any beggar and that there was no reason to create a new law when Seattle already prohibits aggressive panhandling.
Councilmembers Nick Licata, Bruce Harrell, Tom Rasmussen and Mike O'Brien repeated their earlier votes against the measure. Council President Richard Conlin was absent.