To the editor:

The Lawrence City commissioners are considering a new ordinance that would prohibit poor people from asking passers-by for money, a practice known as “panhandling.” A city attorney is properly concerned about such an ordinance’s fairness, about whether the ordinance would prohibit all requests for money. May I suggest that, in the interest of fairness, any new ordinance should prohibit banks, mortgage companies, insurance companies and the like from asking for tax money that comes from Lawrence residents?

We who are lucky enough to have an income to pay taxes on should have as much protection from being asked for money by the people who got the country into this financial mess as we do from being asked for money by the people who are the banks’, mortgage companies’ and insurance companies’ victims.

John Rosen,
Lawrence