Dear Excellency of the Exit Ramps: Has the number of people with cardboard signs begging for money quadrupled? Getting off Interstates 430 or 630, they seem to be everywhere. Now they're at stoplights in west Little Rock. I read somewhere they couldn't be moved by police because they were exercising their First Amendment rights. How about my right to not be intimidated by a ragged guy bending over and looking in my window? "Homeless Veteran, Please Help," reads the sign. I plan to make my own, "Working Veteran. Leave Me Alone and Get a Job." -- Incensed at the Intersection
Dear Incensed: Like the wildflowers of spring, panhandlers have sprouted all over Little Rock and North Little Rock. We have personally observed many. There was one at an entrance ramp to Interstate 30 near the river bridge. A young woman was shooting for the triple crown. Her sign said "Homeless and Pregnant." And she had a brace on a knee.
That was a hat trick, for sure. The validity of her claim could not be determined without a medical test, which we weren't inclined to provide.
Our best guess is that this flowering has something to do with a decision in U.S. District Court in November, in which a federal judge struck down a portion of the state's statute against loitering. One definition of loitering in the law was: "Lingers or remains in a public place or on the premises of another for the purpose of begging."
Negatory, the judge said. Such a provision in the law violates the guarantee of free speech provided by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
No doubt news of the ruling spread. And when spring came and the weather got nice, the panhandling began with enthusiasm.
Newspaper guys love to defend the First Amendment. We like to say freedom of speech means nothing if it doesn't apply to speech with which we disagree.
You are entirely within your rights to create and display a counter sign. Your suggestion above has panache.
Speaking of police, we have heard them say many times: never give money to panhandlers because they will use it for all the wrong reasons.
Dear Mahatma: The intersection of Chenal Parkway and St. Vincent Way has a green/red left-turn arrow. Cars traveling on Chenal and turning left at St. Vincent tend to stack up. There are other intersections in Little Rock with flashing yellow left-turn signals allowing traffic to turn left when safe. Can the city put a flashing yellow arrow here, too? -- Lefty
Dear Lefty: We pitched this to Bill Henry, the city's traffic engineering manager. He threw back a curve.
He told us that the left-turn lanes are offset, causing sight-distance problems because of plantings in the medians. A driver thus can't safely make a nonprotected left turn there, and so the protected left turns only.
Vanity plate seen on a Prius: OVRTAXD
Fjfellone@gmail.com
Metro on 05/06/2017