Fairbanks weighs aggressive panhandling ordinance, but constitutional guardrails loom large

By SUZANNE DOWNING

July 23, 2026 – The Fairbanks City Council is considering an ordinance aimed at aggressive panhandling, prowling, and disruptive behavior in public places, but city officials are wandering into an area of law where local governments have repeatedly run afoul of the US Constitution.

The proposal adds a section to Chapter 46 of the Fairbanks city code, which covers nuisance offenses. It would define several forms of loitering and prowling, distinguish passive panhandling from aggressive conduct and give police officers more explicit direction about when they may intervene.

The challenge for the council is writing a law that targets threatening or dangerous behavior without making it illegal simply to be poor, homeless, intoxicated or occupying a public place.

City Attorney Tom Chard told council members during a Tuesday meeting that it must specifically identify he problem members are trying to solve.  A city just can’t outlaw something as vague as loitering.

The proposed ordinance would cover conduct such as blocking or disrupting traffic on a sidewalk, street or bridge; occupying medians or other unsafe locations; remaining under bridges or overpasses; and refusing a police officer’s order to move or fleeing from an officer.

It would also apply to someone remaining within 50 feet of a business or public facility without permission, or being under the influence of alcohol or another substance to the point that the person may endanger himself or others. Prowling would be defined as looking into buildings or vehicles without permission.

A violation would carry a $50 civil penalty. That approach avoids immediately turning the conduct into a criminal offense, but it raises a practical question: A person living on the street and asking strangers for money is unlikely to have $50 available to pay the city.

The draft offers another possible resolution. A person could avoid the fine by agreeing to be transported elsewhere. Transportation would likely be provided by Emergency Services Patrol, a community paramedic or police officer. A severely impaired person could be taken to a sobering center or detoxification program, while others might be taken to a location of their choosing.

The transportation alternative may be more humane and useful than issuing a ticket that will probably never be paid. But it will also require clear rules to ensure that the person’s agreement to leave is voluntary and that a civil ordinance does not become a shortcut for involuntary detention without probable cause.

Fairbanks is trying to construct what courts sometimes call a “loitering-plus” ordinance. Rather than outlawing standing around or appearing to have no purpose, the city is attempting to connect police intervention to observable conduct, such as obstructing traffic, creating a safety hazard, threatening someone, peering into property or refusing a lawful order.

For centuries, governments used vagrancy laws to punish people for being idle, wandering, begging or lacking “visible means of support.” Those laws eventually became broad tools allowing police to arrest people who had committed no readily identifiable crime.

The US Supreme Court sharply curtailed that authority in 1972. In Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, the court unanimously struck down a Jacksonville, Florida law that criminalized such loosely defined categories as “vagabonds,” “habitual loafers,” “common night walkers” and people wandering without a lawful purpose.

The court found that the ordinance failed to tell ordinary people what conduct was prohibited and gave police nearly unlimited discretion to decide whom to arrest.

The Supreme Court returned to the issue in Kolender v. Lawson in 1983, striking down a California law that required people who were loitering or wandering to provide “credible and reliable” identification. The court said the law placed too much discretion in the hands of individual police officers.

In 1999, the court invalidated Chicago’s gang-loitering ordinance in City of Chicago v. Morales. Chicago had allowed police to order groups to disperse when an officer reasonably believed at least one person was a gang member and the group was remaining in a public place with “no apparent purpose.”

The Supreme Court concluded that the language failed to provide adequate notice and encouraged arbitrary enforcement. The court also recognized that remaining in a public place for an innocent purpose is part of the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The court said vague laws can fail both by leaving citizens uncertain about what is prohibited and by giving police insufficient enforcement standards.

Fairbanks’ panhandling language faces a separate First Amendment issue. Asking another person for money is generally considered protected speech, even when the request makes others uncomfortable. Government may regulate intimidation, threats, touching, following someone, blocking passage and other coercive conduct, but it has much less authority to prohibit a peaceful request for assistance.

That makes the distinction between “passive” and “aggressive” panhandling especially important. A law directed at threatening behavior has a better chance of surviving than one triggered merely by the subject of the speech — asking for a donation.

Some portions of the Fairbanks draft appear more legally defensible than others. Prohibiting the obstruction of streets and sidewalks, keeping people off dangerous traffic medians and stopping someone from looking into vehicles can be tied to concrete public-safety concerns.

Other provisions may require more work. A 50-foot exclusion zone around every business or public facility could cover large portions of downtown Fairbanks and sweep in people engaged in entirely innocent activity. Language allowing enforcement when intoxication “may” affect safety could also depend heavily on an officer’s subjective judgment.

An order to move must itself be lawful. Simply writing “failure to obey” into an ordinance would not necessarily cure a constitutional problem if the original dispersal order lacked a clear, lawful basis.

The Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson gave communities more room to enforce generally applicable prohibitions on public camping. But the ruling did not revive old-style vagrancy laws or eliminate due-process and free-speech protections. The court itself noted that vague public-order laws remain subject to constitutional challenge. The Grants Pass decision specifically distinguished camping regulations from ordinances that fail to define prohibited conduct clearly.

Fairbanks has a legitimate interest in keeping sidewalks passable, protecting businesses and pedestrians, responding to dangerously intoxicated people and giving police workable tools before a situation escalates.

The difficult part is defining the offense by what a person does, not by who the person is or how that person appears.

The central conundrum is that Fairbanks — or any other city in Alaska — must identify the specific harmful conduct it wants to stop. If the ordinance becomes a general prohibition on people who simply don’t seem to fit in, who appear poor, or have nowhere else to go, it could quickly encounter the same constitutional barriers that brought down generations of vagrancy and loitering laws.