A Regina bylaw is being misused by police as a tool to curb street begging and should be repealed, city administrators are recommending.

In a report, prepared for an upcoming meeting of city politicians, the city clerk and city manager say the Tag Day Bylaw was originally intended to regulate fundraising by charitable organizations.

"The bylaw was not intended to regulate the solicitation of funds for personal gain," the report noted.

Police in Regina, however, have been applying the law to discourage street begging.

"While the Tag Day Bylaw was not enacted to prohibit panhandling in the city, the Regina Police Service has, in recent years, relied on [the bylaw] as the basis to lay summary offence charges against panhandlers," the report said.

Police used bylaw 31 times

It found that in the last two years police had laid 31 charges.

Three cases resulted in convictions and people were ordered to pay fines of $50 or $75. The report said two of those fines were paid or worked off through a fine option program. The third fine is still outstanding.

Most of the other cases were still before the courts.

The bylaw was also employed by a person looking to beg money on the streets. In 2008 Regina's city clerk, Joni Swidnicki, said a man applied for — and received — a Tag Day permit. While she did not have many more details, Swidnicki said at the time that the man was looking to raise money to tide him over for a time, and she assumed he used his permit and moved on.

The report says the bylaw is rarely used by charitable organizations anymore.

It notes that organizations that need to use a city street for an activity can, and usually do, go through a different process and obtain a Temporary Street Use Permit from the city.

Begging is protected expression

The administration also advises Regina that, if it wants to enact a bylaw to regulate panhandlers, city council should keep in mind court decisions that have protected street begging as a form of expression.

"Canadian courts have identified panhandling and other forms of begging [such as squeegeeing] as having expressive content regarding political and social issues and therefore as the type of expression protected by the right to freedom of expression," the report says.

The city could enact a panhandling bylaw, so long as it was not an outright prohibition and sought only to "regulate situations where panhandling is characterized as obstructive or coercive."

The report will be considered at a Wednesday meeting of civic politicians, meeting in a forum known as the executive committee of city council.

That committee, which is made up of the mayor and all councillors, can accept the report and provide a recommendation for consideration by city council.