By Richard Danielson, Times Staff Writer
Thursday, January 20, 2011
TAMPA — After three months of sometimes tortured debate, the Tampa City Council Thursday took the first step toward banning panhandling, curbside charity drives and newspaper sales along the city's biggest and busiest roads.
Council members voted 4-3 to schedule a Feb. 3 public hearing on an ordinance aimed at restricting all motorist-to-pedestrian transactions on so-called "arterial" roads, plus interstates and interstate ramps.
In Tampa, the arterial roads where panhandling and other transactions would be banned include Dale Mabry Highway, Kennedy, Gandy, Bayshore, Henderson, Bay-to-Bay, Bruce B. Downs, Busch, Causeway, and Martin Luther King boulevards, Hillsborough, Fletcher, Fowler, Nebraska, Waters, MacDill and Manhattan avenues, 22nd and 40th streets and Columbus Drive.
Council chairman Thomas Scott has worked on the proposal for several weeks with the city attorney's office. Council members Gwen Miller, Mary Mulhern and Curtis Stokes joined him ...