Margate, FL Public Conduct: Aggressive Panhandling (2026)

Section 33-30.1(a) is a location and conduct rule, not an aggressiveness test. It is unlawful for any individual or organization, whether charitable or for profit, to solicit or accept donations from vehicles, to sell or dispense any item or service, or to distribute any literature or item to vehicles, whether moving or at idle, on or adjacent to any public street or highway within the municipal limits. The only exception printed is for vehicles that are legally parked. The Code text does not use the words panhandling or aggressive, and § 33-30.1 sets no distance from crosswalks, banks or automated teller machines and no test based on how a person asks.

Subsection (b) defines the zone. Adjacent to any public street or highway means any area off the paved portion of a public street or highway but a part of the public right-of-way, and it includes shoulders, swales and medians. It does not include private property separated from the public right-of-way by a curb or sidewalk, so the rule targets people standing in the roadway margin or median rather than people on a sidewalk or a shopping center lot behind a curb.

Ord. No. 78-20 adopted the rule on July 19, 1978, and the section was amended by Ord. No. 99-21 in 1999 and Ord. No. 2005-02 in 2005. The Code cross-references § 33-30.1 from § 33-26, the sidewalk obstruction section, and § 33-27 bars merchants from blocking sidewalks or streets to sell. Public camping and sleeping on rights-of-way is regulated separately by § 33-34. Because § 33-30.1 sits in Article I of Chapter 33, the second-degree misdemeanor classification in § 33-28 applies to it.