The Lubbock Police Department said panhandling violates a city ordinance.
Earlier this month, a Lubbock Police report shows an officer wrote a citation to a man for solicitation by a pedestrian on a roadway near South Loop 289 and Quaker Avenue.
According to that police report, officers said the man had been warned several times before the citation was eventually written. The report also said the man was also taken to jail on the allegation of solicitation by a pedestrian on a roadway, and he later bonded out.
According to Lieutenant Ray Mendoza with the Lubbock Police Department, solicitation along the roadway violates city ordinance Sec. 20.07.002, listed as ‘Interference with traffic by sale of merchandise, etc.’
“Basically, you can’t solicit anyone from the roadway, or step on the roadway to deliver any goods or receive any kind of goods, which includes money or food or drinks or any kind of stuff,” Mendoza said.
“When they step onto that roadway, they’ve already violated that ordinance,” he said.
Safety of both the drivers and the pedestrians is a big concern.
“That is the concern for us, is always safety, that’s what we’re trying to look at, at that angle, that nobody gets harmed. In this case, we’re talking about vehicles moving and suddenly stopping and suddenly stopping, so it definitely puts people in a very precarious, dangerous situation,” Mendoza said.
He said since January 1, LPD officers issued 40 citations for solicitation by a pedestrian along the roadway.
Lubbock Police also has a new Homeless Outreach Team, or H.O.T., that works to help the homeless.
“They are out there, they are trying to affect a lot of that, they’re not going to be able to respond to each and every call, but they’re doing their best,” Mendoza said “What the officers try to do that are not on the team, they’ll gather than information and submit that information to our team and let them try to go out and try to help them.”
“Anytime we do come across a homeless person, we try to get that information to the [H.O.T.] team and try to let them go out and do some outreach,” Mendoza said.
