Payphones Go Bye Bye Downtown. Its a Good Thing.

[stephendare]

http://www.jacksonville.com/business/2009-03-10/story/jedc_to_recommend_removal_of_pay_phones

A dozen pay phone boxes along downtown Jacksonville streets could face permanent hang-ups because city officials view them as gathering spots for loiterers and panhandlers.

The Jacksonville Economic Development Commission on Thursday will consider legislation letting the city order the removal of pay phones on sidewalks and in parks downtown. Pay phones would still be permitted on private property and in government buildings.

Police say it’s tough to enforce anti-nuisance laws near pay phones because people say they are waiting to place or receive phone calls.

“This is a crime reduction effort of the Sheriff’s Office,” said Lt. Mike Bruno.

Downtown Vision Executive Director Terry Lorince said the owners of pay phones don’t seem to take care of the phone boxes, which she said are unsightly and often marred by graffiti.

But pay phone customers said removing phones would be going too far.

Jacksonville resident Danae McHugh, who dropped 50 cents into a pay phone Tuesday at Hemming Plaza after a cell phone ran out of minutes, said pay phone boxes are eyesores and she’d support regulations making them more attractive.

“That doesn’t mean we don’t need them,” she said. “For me, it’s an important resource.”

The city has identified 12 pay phones that owners would have to remove if the legislation is approved by City Council. The city says the phones were installed without getting the necessary permits and violate existing codes. Two of the pay phones are at Hemming Plaza.

Nationwide, the number of pay phones has fallen sharply this decade as cell phones became more popular. There were 2 million pay phones in 2000, but that has dropped to around 800,000, according to the American Public Communications Council, a trade organization representing pay phone business.

Still, many people don’t have cell phones, said Jacksonville resident Daniel Dennis, 30, who uses the pay phone at Hemming Plaza.

“What if somebody keels over on the street and you can’t see a pay phone?” he said. “If you can’t see a pay phone, you can’t use them.”

Karen Nasrallah, redevelopment manager for the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission, said there would still be plenty of pay phones in downtown, both in government buildings like City Hall as well as on privately-owned property.

She said the regulation is aimed at pay phones that people loiter around, creating an intimidating situation for others who are walking down the sidewalks and find their path obstructed by panhandlers. She said it creates a perception that undermines the effort to make downtown a clean and safe neighborhood that’s walkable.

The legislation mirrors similar restrictions the city placed on pay phones in the Springfield neighborhood north of downtown. Bruno said those regulations have proven successful.

Willard Nichols, president of the American Public Communications Council, said a few other cities have passed laws to remove pay phones on crime-fighting grounds. He said a federal telecommunications act in 1996 favors making pay phones as widespread as possible because millions of households lack phones. He said courts have struck down local laws that weren't “limited and reasonable.”

“When we see this type of thing come up, it seems that upon reflection, after getting educated and thinking through the issue, I’ve seen less than a handful of situations where the political authorities have gone through with this,” he said.

[thekillingwax]

Good thing indeed. I remember back before the cell phone days when I'd be down there and try to call for a ride home and every single freaking phone had some idiot hovering over it proclaiming that he was "waiting for a call". There used to be one near where I live and it was the central hub for the crack dealers servicing the day labor lots. Some saint started chopping the handset off with bolt cutters, they stopped replacing it eventually.

[heights unknown]

I disagree with their assessment of payphones being a crime problem in parks and public places.  People rarely use pay phones nowadays, and I have a problem with the homeless and drug users loitering and/or using payphones...most of them don't even have the money to make phone calls, and most now have cell phone themselves through the free safelink phones issued by the government; cell phones are the vogue, and the poor service provided by payphones along with the high cost to use them stink and has turned people away from using them.

This is just another ploy, or detraction, by the police and sheriff to make the citizens/public think that they are really doing something to prevent crime, or moving to eliminate crime; payphones are a paltry, feeble excuse for fighting crime in my opinion.

You'd better just buckle down Jacksonville police and sheriff's office and spend those taxpayer dollars to put the manpower out there, improve surveillance tactics and spend even more money to win the war on crime rather than blaming crime on citizens using payphones.

Heights Unknown