Palo Alto Considers Expanding Ban on Sidewalk Sitting

PALO ALTO, Calif. (KCBS) -- For ten years now, it has been against the law for people to sit of lie down along University Avenue in Palo Alto in an effort to prevent the homeless from hanging out.

Now, KCBS reporter Mike Colgan has found out the city council is proposing an expansion of the sometimes controversial ordinance.

The proposal includes expanding the ordinance to within 50-feet of any business from Lytton to Channing and Alma to Emerson.

One 50 year resident of Palo Alto supports the proposal. "I think it's a good idea because it makes you feel safer when you are going up and down the streets. I feel that these are people who come from other areas and they are not Palo Alto people," she said.

But many others say the ordinance is a smoke screen.

"It's an excuse to arrest anybody they don't like and so they'll just make a list of people they don't like and get rid of them. I think the reason they would do it here in Palo Alto because that would encourage the people to move somewhere else to a different city. It's not solving the problem, it's just moving the problem," noted another resident.