By RORY SCHULER

The requests for change ultimately cost the city of Cranston a quarter of a million dollars.

On most days, a lone middle-aged man stands in the median outside the Walmart entrance on Plainfield Pike in Cranston.

He is usually sitting on a box. He may have a few belongings scattered at his feet or tucked tightly into a bag. He holds a can in his hand, which he holds out to passing cars as they leave the store’s parking lot.

Sometimes, however, a whole family sits on the median strip. The children sit on the ground while two adults ask passing drivers for change.

For years, this activity existed in a legal gray area in Cranston. Although an ordinance against panhandling existed, the courts essentially ruled the law unenforceable.

Following a unanimous vote by the Cranston City Council on Thursday evening, August 15, the panhandling ordinance was removed from the city’s criminal code. The repeal of the ordinance was even supported by the office of Cranston Mayor Kenneth Hopkins, who originally voted to pass the original ordinance.

This family standing on the median asking for change now has the legal right to “beg” in the City of Cranston again.

Cranston 3rd District City Councilman and Democratic Majority Leader John Donegan sponsored the amendment to the Miscellaneous Traffic Ordinance, known as the city’s “panhandling ordinance.”

According to Donegan, the panhandling ordinance was first passed in 2017, before his first term on the city council.

The council debated the proposal “at the beginning of the 2017 legislative session, right after Donald Trump was elected, and a group of local residents, including myself, began organizing on community issues,” Donegan said earlier this week.

According to Donegan, “The panhandling ordinance caused my attention and focus to shift from politics at the national and state level to working for positive change at the local level.”

“Dozens of us showed up to committee and council meetings to protest the ordinance,” the outgoing councilman recalled. Donegan recently announced his decision not to run for another term on the City Council. “The ordinance was opposed by a broad coalition of individuals and organizations, local progressives, libertarians and the ACLU; they opposed the measure on moral, political and First Amendment grounds.”

Donegan said the ordinance was ultimately passed by the council along party lines.

“I was part of a group that protested against the regulation, although I was not fined under the enforcement mechanisms,” he recalls.

Several years later, the ordinance was challenged in court, and the city finally settled under Hopkins in 2021. As a city councilman, Hopkins was one of the Republicans who voted to pass the panhandling ordinance in 2017.

“The ordinance ultimately cost the city about $250,000 in legal and settlement fees,” Donegan said.

Anthony Moretti, Hopkins’ chief of staff, told the City Council’s Ordinance Committee that the mayor’s office had no objection to repealing the ordinance.

“It is important to understand the intent behind this proposed ordinance change, but in my view it stems from a federal court ruling that allows panhandling as constitutional,” Moretti wrote via email earlier this week. “I believe the City Council’s intent is to bring our ordinance into compliance with federal law, thereby essentially repealing the ordinance that previously prohibited panhandling.”