You can see them most days on the off ramps from State Route 167 at 15th Streets northwest and southwest, at Highway 18 and Auburn Way South, and at 15th Street and Auburn Way North – the panhandlers with their cardboard signs, asking for money.

Now Auburn Police Chief Jim Kelly would like to stiffen city rules on aggressive panhandling by adding new definitions to impeding or threatening to impede vehicle traffic. Last Monday, Kelly explained to members of the city’s Municipal Services Committee why.

Traffic lights are meant to control the flow of traffic at intersections, Kelly said, and drivers have a right to expect traffic will begin to move on a green light. But throw into that mix a panhandler, and things change: somebody in the line of traffic is bound to stop to hand over money or to motion the panhandler into the street.

“That impedes the flow of traffic and sometimes causes collisions,” Kelly said.

The proposed amendment would make it illegal to engage in any begging activity that:

• Causes or is likely to cause either the person begging or the person being contacted to enter a roadway lane of traffic on foot, other than in a marked crosswalk.

• Occurs at an intersection controlled by lighted traffic signals, where that activity is between or involves persons located on a sidewalk or along a public roadway and persons in or on a vehicle traveling on a public roadway.

• Causes or is likely to cause vehicles to stop at locations or times where or when disruptive to, or not consistent with, the flow of traffic.

Kelly said the City of Tacoma has a similar ordinance, but each community handles aggressive begging or panhandling in its own way.

Auburn officers recognize the safety hazard, Kelly said, and often their first step is to shoo the panhandlers away.

“We don’t get a high degree of voluntary compliance. Essentially, they just come back after they have left. If we discover these people panhandling, we can ticket them. Auburn has been pretty assertive about keeping our roadways flowing, for obvious reasons,” Kelly said.

Councilwoman Lynn Norman described her own encounters with panhandlers.

“So often when I come off now from 167 at 15th, there’s a regular there,” Norman said. “It’s happened only two times, but it really irked me. Somebody motioned to them, he walked over to the car and stood there and talked as the light changed. Several cars in the queue didn’t make it through the light.”

The proposed change is scheduled for discussion at the committee’s next meeting at 3:30 p.m., Monday, Sept. 22, in Conference Room 3 at City Hall. The City Council could take action that same evening.

No panhandlers would agree to an interview. But Auburn residents weighed in.

“Panhandling annoys me, because they seem intimidating,” said Nicole Carrier, a waitress at the Starting Gate Restaurant at 504 Auburn Way N. “It’s especially bad at Highway 18. It annoys me when I have a child in the car, and I have to explain to my child why a guy who is physically able to work is standing on the road with a sign. And it slows me down going through green lights. There’s also a safety issue. I have to lock my doors, and if my windows are down, I have to put them back up.”

Dishwasher David Todd said he has seen police departments elsewhere try to do the same thing.

“I lived in Seattle when Seattle made the mistake of trying to crack down on panhandling,” Todd said. “It’s a mistake, because it’s already illegal to be aggressive towards people. That’s basic assault, and they simply weren’t enforcing the assault laws. When they started cracking down on the panhandlers, the individual cops got out of control. The cops in this town are out of control to start with, and if you give them something else to be out of control with, they are just going to become even more abusive to the citizens.

“… Look, blocking traffic is illegal to start with,” Todd continued. “Harassment is illegal, assaulting someone is illegal, all these things are already illegal. We have these No Drug zones, but drugs are already illegal anyway. It’s one more set of laws on the books that are going to be misused or ignored.”