Posted on 04/17/2010 6:33:10 PM PDT by writer33
If you think police ticketing Girls Scouts for selling cookies is outrageous, I've got a better one: If the Seattle City Council votes Monday to pass the anti-solicitation ordinance put forward by Councilman Tim Burgess, even your Salvation Army Santa could get a $50 ticket.
If the hapless Santa didn't have the money and tried to fight the ticket, he would not be entitled to a free lawyer. And if the notice for his court date didn't reach him in time up at the North Pole and he missed his hearing, the court could issue a warrant for his arrest and, once nabbed, order him to take drug or alcohol treatment -- all without Santa ever being put on trial or found guilty of committing a single, actual crime.
Now that you're seeing red, I'll admit: Salvation Army Santas are not panhandlers and of course the police would not ticket them or the Girl Scouts. That's exactly the point that opponents of the ordinance made Wednesday at a last-ditch press conference where Councilman Nick Licata and staff from the ACLU, NAACP and Real Change (where I work) pointed to a report from the Seattle Human Rights Commission that tears Burgess's ordinance to shreds for its lack of due process and serious errors.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.seattlepi.com ...
Yes...there’s nothing quite like a sweaty homeless person to decorate the downtown area wreaking of alcohol while panhandling. And libs are just outraged that someone would try to clean it up. How dare those evil people!
political correctness run amuck
Yep.
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