For several years, Auburn has had a specific chapter of its code that makes aggressive begging a misdemeanor punishable by a fine and jail time.

On Aug. 17 at City Hall, the Auburn City Council repealed its aggressive begging code entirely.

Not because the city is ready to embrace aggressive begging, but because other chapters of the city code already cover people running out into traffic to collect money, scaring people and like bad behavior.

The engine for this change is a recent Washington State Supreme Court decision that declared another Western Washington city’s prohibitions against begging at freeway ramps and major intersections were overbroad.

In light of that, the Auburn City Attorney’s office took a fresh look at the city code and determined that Auburn’s police and its prosecutor’s office could address that bad conduct using other mechanisms already in the code.

The city is not outlawing panhandling; its sole aim is the egregious behavior sometimes associated with panhandling.

That is, merely standing on the side of a road, perhaps in a public right of way asking for money, is not criminal conduct. The criminal conduct would be endangering the life or safety of an individual.

Police Chief Dan O’Neil said last week that if it happens on Washington State Department of Transportation property like Highway 18, that’s the Washington State Patrol’s jurisdiction, not that of Auburn Police.

“When you’re out there on Highway 18 near Auburn Way South, one of the challenges is that this is a city ordinance, and we don’t have the ability to enforce that city ordinance on an off-ramp because it’s part of the freeway. In that situation, what we do is enforce the state law against disorderly conduct if they come out and interfere with the flow of vehicle traffic,” O’Neil said.

O’Neil said Auburn’s police officers use the law and its ordinances as the last alternative.