Glendale residents sue over city's panhandling bans, claiming First Amendment violations

Three Glendale residents have filed a lawsuit over the city’s panhandling bans, saying the bans violate their First Amendment rights.

The plaintiffs want to stop Glendale from enforcing what they call unconstitutional ordinances. The city passed them in 2022, just months before hosting Super Bowl LVII.

Gregg Leslie is the executive director of the First Amendment Clinic at ASU's Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law.

“That's kind of common for these kinds of things," Leslie said. "The city gets together and says ‘Oh how can we look better and cleaner and smarter as we have a national crowd gathering here?’ So they decided visible poverty and expressions of speech like this just become something they want to cover up and hide.”

At the time, city officials said the ban was designed to address traffic and pedestrian safety concerns.

Leslie said it prevents people from asking others for financial support in every publicly accessible location in the city.

“Ultimately that is a regulation of speech that you can’t approach somebody and ask for money and it just becomes a much too powerful and restrictive remedy," Leslie said.

In a statement about the case, the ACLU of Arizona said the ordinances penalize people experiencing homelessness.

“Criminalizing a person asking for help isn’t only unconstitutional, it’s wrong,” said Lauren Beall, staff attorney for the ACLU of Arizona. “Punishing someone with an exorbitant fine or putting them in jail when they can’t make ends meet perpetuates a vicious cycle that keeps people struggling and in poverty. Ordinances like these blatantly violate the First Amendment and make communities less safe.”