ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — St. Petersburg is considering a new rule that some say targets the homeless community.
The ordinance proposal to get unpermitted tables off the sidewalks in St. Pete passed its first reading at a council meeting on Thursday.
But tables aren’t the only objects that would be impacted.
“Any furniture, equipment, or other type of object that’s being used for display, exhibition, presentation, or distribution to the public causes these issues,” Brett Pettigrew from the city attorney’s office said at a committee meeting discussing the proposal back in May. “That combination of, you put something on the sidewalk, and people are gathering around it.”
St. Pete already has an ordinance that blocks this, but it’s only for a consolidated area. This proposal would expand that to a much larger portion of the city including the pier and Central Avenue.
With the way the new proposal is written, some say its impact could target homeless or low-income St. Pete neighbors.
The ordinance is worded to say it’s not just tables that would be blocked, it’s “any object that is used as the functional equivalent of a table.”
Critics say, when you look at that language, along with the fact that this ordinance will be tied to another ordinance that prohibits “sleeping, lying, and reclining,” in those areas during daylight hours — it targets the homeless.
“That’s what the problem is with these anti-homeless laws,” Karla Correa from the St. Petersburg Tenants Union explained. “They’re oftentimes written in kind of vague ways so that homeless people just existing is criminalized.”
Councilman Richie Floyd and Councilwoman Deborah Figgs-Sanders voted against the ordinance at Thursday’s meeting.
“In the future, I hope we can have a broader discussion about people experiencing homelessness and doing what they can on the street to get by,” Floyd said.
The ordinance will have its second reading on Oct. 6.