A five-seat majority on BART’s board of directors declined to move forward Thursday morning with a request that staff research and draft an ordinance cracking down on panhandlers and performers in the paid areas of the transit system.
Director Debora Allen, who represents four stations in Central Contra Costa County and requested the item be put on the agenda, argued that many of her constituents feel unsafe when asked for money. Especially elderly or disabled people.
BART Police Department Deputy Chief Lance Haight said his officers often get reports of panhandling or solicitation, a broader term which includes busking and dance performances accompanied by a request for donation, but are unable to take action because the activities in question do not violate state penal codes – which primarily involve disorderly conduct or “‘unreasonably loud’ sound equipment.”
The main remedy proposed was an ordinance that would create a new criminal infraction for panhandling or solicitation in paid areas of the transit system. Director Mark Foley also floated the idea of a permitting system and Director Liz Ames inquired about posting “no panhandling” signs.
In the end, however, there were not enough votes to move forward with restrictions of any kind.
Director Robert Raburn pointed out that a number of outstanding musicians have started their careers busking on BART, citing examples like The California Honeydrops and Oakland’s own Fantastic Negrito.
Director Janice Li called crafting an anti-panhandling ordinance a bad use of the board’s time and the district’s staff resources. She also expressed concern that by authorizing police to crack down on buskers and panhandlers, the increased number of police interactions could be accompanied by an increased number of use-of-force cases.
Li advocated for implementing an ambassador program, in which BART staff would have a visible presence in the stations rather than police, as a means to address public safety concerns. She also urged the board to focus on other issues like train and station cleanliness, train temperature and on-time performance.
Directors Lateefah Simon and Rebecca Saltzman cast their lot with Li, as did Board President Bevan Dufty – who argued that much of the day’s discussion was driven by falsehoods surrounding poverty.
“My disgust is that we are pushing such a false issue right now,” Dufty said.
“Let’s do a better job of addressing what the real problems are,” he added.
Ames, Foley and Director John McPartland expressed support for Allen’s move to place some kind of restrictions on panhandling in paid areas of the station.
“I think we’re hearing that there are five directors who are not interested,” Allen said.
She plans to seek additional support from allies on the board and resurrect the matter sometime in 2020.
You can’t make this kind of stuff up. We recall Saltzman was all in favor of the folks that completely blocked BART in protest over something . The idea that BART users should be governed by the far left is revolting .
Your argument is non-responsve to the article. Saltzman’s past is irrelevant.
You can pretend otherwise, but Saltzman’s history with BART is most relevant.
I finally realize what CY’s purpose is as he mentions “your argument”.
He likes to argue or disagree with anything law abiding or rule right.Typical lib.
Rules don’t matter.Only butt hurt feelings prompting a response of the opposite .
This is why BART is a mess. Liberal directors collecting fat salaries who do nothing for their riders.
BART directors make $18,037 per year, not really a “fat salary”. They may also get health benefits which could be worth as much or more than the salary.
Bill that’s $9 per hour.Nobody makes that little
They are not interested because they know the ACLU will challenge this and they don’t want the bad press….. The Board is spineless!
Just another symptom of California looseness. I, who have to pay to use anything, as am not one of the entitlement crowd, who by the way, is forced to support all this none sense and lawlessness, am sick and tired of these let everyone do what they want with no repercussions.
Pan handlers are a nuisance. If someone can beg for handouts they best be able to get a job. Hand outs are not taxable, so most likely, they are double dipping off of the system also.
I am 100% against pan handling, or could you tell.
Handouts are indeed taxable.
CY: if you think any tax gets paid (besides eventual sales tax) on panhandlers ‘earnings’ I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
Handouts are gifts. You can give someone up to $15,000 and it’s tax free to the recipient. Your spouse can give the same person another $15,000 and it’s still tax free. If you want to give money to a family, let’s say a single parent and two kids, then give each of them $15,000 and your spouse also does $15,000. It allows you to transfer $90,000 tax free each year. The $15,000 is a federal thing. California has no limits on gifts and so as long as you keep it at or under $15,000 per person there will be no state or federal taxes.
But WC,the panhandlers make $100-200 a day easily,and spend it all on dope.That’s way more than $15000 per year.15k per year is 1200 per month.
The WC panhandlers I have chatted with are getting $25 to $30 in a day but are not consistently sober enough to do it every day. $100 is a very good week that results in enough celebration that they will be wasted for a couple of weeks.
The $15,000 number is per individual giver. A panhandler can receive $1 billion of gifts in a year and it’s 100% tax free as long as he or she does not receive more than $15,000 from any one person in the year.
People who ask for donations, often with a medical, funeral, religious, or conspiracy theme, are getting 100% tax free gifts.
Let’s say someone gets $1 million in donations but that one person gave $20,000. That $1 million is tax free. The IRS will go after the giver of the $20,000 for the gift tax on the $5,000 excess over $15,000. On the flip side, someone can give away $1 million and there will be no gift taxes as long as the amount given is $15,000 or less per recipient.
WC of course they tell you that all they get is $25 -30 a day.
If they told you the truth about how much they get,nobody would give them anything,You chat with them?So you perpetuate their life by giving them money cause you think “$100 is a good week” no,it’s a slow day.Wake up.
They make more per day than most that work 8- 10 hour days and pay taxes..
WOW! I use to really enjoy knowing BART was available anytime I wanted to go to San Francisco, now I would NOT consider using it.
I wonder how often members of the BART board actually enter a station and ride on BART?
The Bart board members don’t have to worry about that, the arm security guards that are with them every moment while they’re in the Bart system do
Thankfully there is at least one sane BART board member. The others are absolute fools. I am glad to be leaving the Bay Area and this state in the near future. There are much better places to live in this country than the West Coast!!!
Totally agree
How bout just keeping non-paying customers out of the stations?
Hum?
This would fix 90% of BARTs problems.
Idiots.
They’re working on that.
Bart is a joke and a vision of how demifornia works
You pay they sit and take huge bonuses
You complain And the few politicians who want change are shamed and beaten down and fear mongered by agenda driven democrats
Unions control this state get used to it
If riders refused service for 3 weeks
They would gain the upper hand
And Demand changing of the guard so to speak of these fat cat 1% Bart board memebers who’s only existence is to thwart any thing designed to further the safety and existence of the paying customer
If BART stopped service for 3 weeks, people would realize how essential it is (drivers and riders alike) and quit complaining so much.
If the paying BART customers could take one day and boycott the system en masse in protest of BART’s complete disregard for the safety and comfort of their paying customers, maybe they’d get the message. It won’t happen, because those paying customers have jobs they have to get to, or meetings, or appointments, or planes to catch. They don’t have the luxury of structuring their own time the way panhandlers do and loitering around the stations. Some of them are very aggressive and threatening to single women.
Panhandling is a nuisance and paying customers should not have to run a gauntlet of beggars to use the system. I will seriously consider never again using BART. I strongly object to being accosted at a station that I pay large amounts to support with my tax dollars and equally large parking and ticket fares only to be aggressively annoyed and “hit up” by those who don’t. Their “Life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” is interfering with mine, and I pay the bills, damn it.
I feel sorry for my grandchildren because the world keeps getting dumber and it doesn’t look like it will get better anytime soon. It is not just BART it is everywhere.
The world is definitely becoming this way, a good example of where the world is going is to watch the movie “Idiocracy” we are moving towards that level of stupidity on a dialy basis.
So if BART refuses to do anything…… does that give a right for paying customers to do something about it??????
Rode Bart when it originally opened in the early 70’s. It was extremely clean, quiet & orderly. Escalators, bathrooms…trains..worked & everyone behaved. It was a revelation compared to growing up with muni. No secret why, it was due to rules and expectations…which were enforced. Bart is simply emblematic of California in general due to one thing…liberal politics.
An Easy Fix:
ALL BART RIDERS take the same day off and watch how fast those incompetent overpaid dolittles make a change.
Reason #44 that I won’t use BART anymore
This is ridiculous
Hmmm, I wonder how much time the Bart Directors spend riding the trains each day?
If they were directly impacted by the spectacle of a person aggressively panhandling maybe they would feel differently. Guess things are different in their Ivory Towers.
Not really because I think most of their relatives are the panhandlers themselves.
Panhandling int the paid area? Well Bart police could check for them for a valid ticket to start.
Bart just wants to ignore the problem.
Sweeping generalizations like, “The Board is spineless,” willfully and unfairly ignore repeated and well-documented attempts by some board members to address BART’s nagging criminal, safety and sanitation problems. She can’t do it alone, but Ms. Allen for one deserves credit for continually forcing her fellow board members to focus on the issues.
Director Robert Raburn pointed out that a number of outstanding musicians have started their careers busking on BART, citing examples like The California Honeydrops and Oakland’s own Fantastic Negrito. – Because everyone knows these groups!! What a joke! Another reason why people will move to ride share companies.
BART needs to crack down, but if they refuse to do it, you have two choices. Don’t take BART, or if you do – ignore the solicitors. Don’t make eye contact, and wear sunglasses. They leave me alone because I don’t give them the opportunity to bother me. I do feel bad for the elderly and disabled.
BART is a joke and this is just another reason why. Have fun getting shanked by a box cutter.
You do realize that your rulers hate you, right?
Why would they give up such an effective weapon of torment against the normies and deplorables?
Y’all just need to shut up and pay your taxes. Your betters know what is best for you.
meanwhile, the same guy in the military uniform is still scamming people with the same story about how he’ll lose visitation rights if his son can’t board a flight, but is stuck at the airport because of an oversize baggage fee.
BART doesn’t enforce the rules it already has, what good would one more rule do if it gets ignored?
BART’s general manager, Robert Powers, will be at Concord BART Oct 30 8AM-9AM for a listening session.
BART is more concerned with that new Lake front building in Oakland. They are a joke. I have been on public transportation around the world, and BART is hands down the worst. They don’t care about anything more than their salaries.
BART Board members have too much in common with panhandlers, expecting to be paid for doing nothing. Meanwhile service deteriorates and prices go up.
Im in same boat, havent ridden BART for years and refuse to do so, I now drive everywhere in my loud big ass 10 mpg gas guzzling road damaging truck with huge mud tires polluting the air. Its much safer now than riding BART.
I am sure if you asked people who ride BART daily they would say begging, homelessness, and theft are three of the biggest issues along with filthy trains/stations and threats of violence. But Bevan Duffy being from SF is numbed to panhandling/homelessness so it is a nonissue.
@RANDOM
I know, you hate unions, but:
“Unions control this state get used to it”
But forming an organization (could be called a union),
“If riders refused service for 3 weeks”
“They would gain the upper hand”
Don’t give them money EVER and they will stop soliciting…it’s that simple. Just STOP already.
I’d love to hear Bevan Dufty’s priorities, because it sure doesn’t seem like rider safety is one of them.
Another reason why I don’t ride Bart!
When I take BART, I am interested in transportation. I am not looking for the next musical talent, and I am definitely not interested in being hit up for money. The board seems out of touch with passengers. The person who commented on this site that only ticket holders be allowed inside the gates is right.
When your property taxes come in every year and you get a look at what it is costing you for BART even though you don’t ride it, you have a right to demand better.
This is not a surprise. They also refuse to get the vagrants out of the BART cars and stations. That’s why an innocent woman was cut by some wacko with a box cutter earlier this week on BART. At this point they might as well shut the system down and allow the homeless to turn the out of service trains into camps!
1. I recommend that the BART Board Members’ offices and board meeting rooms be housed in several Bart stations so they can personally witness daily on what the Bart customers experience while using Bart.
2. The Bart Board Members need to listen to the voice of their customers so by relocating their offices and meeting rooms, they will be able to come up proactively with realistic solutions because they will experience daily what the bart customers regularly hear, see, smell, and feel while using Bart including the parking lot and restroom situation plus security
Housing the Board Members offices and meeting rooms in Bart stations ( they could be spread out in several stations)would be cost savings as well. They can hold their offices as well so customers can visit them for info exchange and feedback.
By the way, today, a man boarded the Bart station with his bike and he simply layed down on the floor. He occupied a good amount of space. I have not seen this level of public transport disarray elsewhere; e.g. Europe.
Once again, taxpayers and those who pay to use BART are the ones whose voices are not being heard. The panhandlers, homeless, drug users, and mentally unstable individuals’ rights to violate the space and peace of commuters is more important.
BART is a joke! I am so glad that I do not have to use it to commute to work anymore.
Here’s a suggestion BART board. Check out how countries like Japan and those in Europe handle their train and subway systems.
To kick them all out results in cries of ‘that’s racist’ so they won’t do it.Look at most of the beggers,and esp the musicians.These people can’t accept that they are told to leave because of their behavior,so they blame it on their own skin color,so you’ll leave them alone.
New equipment checklist for BART riders: fare card and air horn. When the performers start their show, demisters your enthusiasm and join in by blaring your horn in their direction. What’s BART gonna do, pass an ordinance against amateur air horn players honing their craft?
Another possible suggestion: someone should offer a donation to some of these panhandlers to come and perform in the middle of a BART board meeting and work the room for additional contributions. Clearly the board wants to support their buffing careers and would gladly give up a few minutes of their time during the meeting. Every meeting, amIright?
Excellent idea. See how they like it.
Your post is irrelevant to the article.
no it’s not
It is especially unfortunate because, for all intents and purposes, you are a “captive audience.” You are forced by nature of the circumstances to be assaulted by unwanted stimuli. That is unless you exit the train, which then defeats the purpose of why you rode the train in the first place
It is akin to being kidnapped and held captive, repeatedly assaulted, and never knowing if you will be released alive. You are forced to endure something you don’t want or worse, something you find offensive, with no escape. That’s what it feels like to me.
Or, I can drive into San Francisco and take a chance that my car will be broken into as has happened in the past, have extensive damage, require expensive repairs, be inconvenienced by not having transportation for a week or so, have unbudgeted costs for insurance deductibles, feel violated and upset, and so on.
What happens when an aggressive panhandler is injured by a paying BART patron who felt threatened?
The Lawyers assemble.
Beyond disappointing and frustrating. BART allows the mentally ill panhandlers to control and vandalize BART to the detriment of passenger health and safety, not to mention the condition of the overall system. Same familiar faces doing this also. Passenger class action lawsuit against BART for not taking reasonable care to keep stations, lots, platforms and trains safe, clean, secure for patrons and undue delays caused by same group of individuals. Passengers deserve better. We are footing the bill for really bad service. Fare evasion is just ignored. I feel really cheated by e-BART also.
There is a time and a place for busking, a moving train really isn’t one of them. I once witnessed an exciting group dance performance in the middle of a BART car. The act included acrobatic maneuvers on the hand rails and a flip or two. While I marveled at their talent and sheer athleticism, I couldn’t help but feel that someone could very easily get a tooth knocked loose. If such an accident ever does occur on BART, I hope that someone is a lawyer from the ACLU.
Kudos to Debora.Allen. I’ve spoken to her one on one in the past and been very impressed with her attitude and conviction on a number of issues.
Not irrelevant.Its about people that don’t belong on the subway system,and the crimes they commit.Why do you even say this?What are you trying to defend?It can’t be anything good.
I would love to hop on Bart on any given day and ride into the City to explore, but I CAN’T
In the few times I have ridden the system, I’ve seen so many scum bags, beggars, and filthy dirty bums stretched out sleeping across the seats, it makes me sick. I am too old and afraid to go alone. What a shame Bart has become.
I remember when my parents started paying taxes for the new train system back in 1956. Who knew what it was or what it would become. They never once ever rode Bart even when it only cost $1.00. Now I am paying for it with my taxes and I CAN’T ride Bart. Disgusting is what it is. I bought a Clipper card years ago and have only used it once. Yes, I know I can get my money back. Maybe things will improve with Bart and I won’t have to.
I’m now retired but my last few yrs commuting on BART were miserable. One lady walked thru the train screeching bible crap every afternoon. If I wanted to hear that, if go to church. The trains smelled & were filthy. People eating, throwing trash, etc. The few times I’ve ridden midday to join friends for lunch or dinner were much worse. Homeless riding in the cars all day, people yelling, fighting. I gave up. I haven’t gone to the city in 3 years except drove once to see Cirque du Soleil. I’ll drive again next month even though the parking fee is a killer for a retired (or any) person. I miss the city but it’s just a pain in the butt to get there. I never thought I would leave the bay area (moved here from Santa Cruz in 1977) but I’m thinking about it more and more. It’s only going to get worse. Sad.