Those rowdy crowds that show up on roadsides during the fall campaign season holding signs and waving at drivers soon could be history in Anne Arundel County.
And so could the person dressed up in a gorilla suit sporting sandwich-board advertising for local businesses.
Democratic Sen. Ed DeGrange won support from a majority of his fellow Anne Arundel senators to include campaign sign waving and sandwich-board advertising for businesses on the list of roadside solicitations prohibited by a proposed bill.
“What are those people on the side of the road trying to do? They?re trying to get a motorist to look at [them] instead of concentrating on what [the drivers are] doing,” DeGrange said.
The county?s Senate delegation voted 3-2 Friday to approve a bill prohibiting roadside solicitation in the road and along the government-owned right-of-way. The delegation?s two Republicans voted against the measure.
“There are businesses in my district that rely on that,” said Republican Sen. Bryan Simonaire, who opposed the changes. “It?s not going to help the business community.”
The basic bill would outlaw the practice of soliciting money by standing in medians and walking up to cars stopped at traffic lights.
The County Council last year approved a bill to ban children younger than 18 from panhandling.
The bill being considered by the General Assembly would completely outlaw roadside solicitation.
Alan Friedman, county lobbyist, said an agreement had been reached between local fire departments and other charities that frequent the roadsides to give them alternatives, such as collecting money at county and state festivals.
Anne Arundel County Executive John Leopold has been credited with introducing campaign sign waving to Maryland political campaigns. County spokeswoman Rhonda Wardlaw called the ban on campaign wavers “a small price to pay in order to get a public safety bill passed.”
