Medford, OR Public Conduct: Aggressive Panhandling (2026)

258 opens by stating its purpose is to impose reasonable place-and-manner limits on solicitation to protect public safety from abusive solicitation while respecting free speech, balancing expression against protecting pedestrian and vehicular movement and a captive audience from solicitors. Subsection (1) bars "abusive solicitation" outright, and clarifies that passively displaying a sign is not a violation unless the person then acts to obtain or retrieve an item of value prompted by the sign. "Solicitation" is defined in (2)(a) as an in-person request for an immediate donation of money or another item of value.

"Abusive solicitation" is defined in (2)(b) as conduct done intentionally, recklessly, or knowingly that places the solicited person in reasonable apprehension of imminent physical harm, or that provokes or is likely to provoke an imminent violent or disorderly response, listing five specific behaviors: continuing to solicit after the person has declined, blocking or impeding the solicited person's passage, following the person after they declined, touching the person without consent, and using offensive or threatening words, gestures, or actions. The section closes with a severability clause preserving the rest of the ordinance if a court strikes any part.