Thwarted by Maryland’s attorney general in their effort to curb loitering in their town, Gaithersburg officials are looking for new ways to keep day laborers from looking for work on public roads.
Last week, Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler rejected an anti-solicitation ordinance passed by the City Council nearly a year ago that would have made looking for work or workers along city streets a misdemeanor for all involved. Gansler said the rule ran afoul of the First Amendment and Maryland’s vehicle laws.
City officials say the measure was intended to protect both workers’ and drivers’ safety.
“People stopping in roadways in busy traffic areas is an unsafe situation,” Gaithersburg Mayor Sidney Katz said. Some Gaithersburg officials say the city may need to pursue other options. Assistant city manager Fred Felton said a number of property owners along Route 355 have “given agency” to city police to ban people from properties.
“If they see someone causing a problem on that property, they can ban them from the property and enforce that ban through citation or arrest,” Felton said.
Opponents of the anti-solicitation rule condemned the measure when first proposed as being unfairly aimed at Latinos, who comprise a majority of those looking for work on the city’s streets.
Many officials say the anti-solicitation ordinance issue last yearcaused factions to form both on the City Council and in the community at large, and morphed from a debate about public safety to an issue that galvanized the opposing sides on illegal immigration.
“It’s a little of both,” Council member Henry Marraffa, who supported the anti-solicitation ordinance, told The Examiner. “We don’t want the safety problem it creates, but I am not going to deny it doesn’t have to do with being an illegal alien as well.”
Newly elected Council member Ryan Spiegel, who opposed the ordinance, said that mentality upsets him. “There was so much hostility around these issues a year ago,” Spiegel told The Examiner. “I am worried things are going to resurface. We’re trying hard to bring people together, and I think this could divide them again.”
