The people who hand out parking tickets in Fredericton will soon be able to ticket panhandlers too.

It’s the city’s latest attempt to curb panhandling and a strategy already in place in Moncton.

“The people on the street who knew the most about what was going on was the [parking] commissionaires,” says Bruce McCormack, general manager of Downtown Fredericton Inc., which represents downtown retailers.

Parking enforcement officers in Fredericton will have the authority to issue panhandlers a $140 fine.

“Some of the aggressive panhandlers are going up to, knocking on the windows, you know, to seniors that are trying to do their banking in their car before they go into the bank and get it all clear,” says McCormack. “It’s frightening to a lot of them.”

But Dan Weston, coordinator of the Fredericton Anti-Poverty Organization, says the city continues to ignore the root of its panhandling issue.

“If you had a guaranteed income, you wouldn’t have people panhandling, and if they did they wouldn’t get any money because people would look at them and say, ‘You’ve got a guaranteed income. Why should I give you a dollar?’” says Weston.

However, the city says intervening will be the priority, rather than ticketing.

“So that we can provide information and resources to panhandlers that they may need, such as medical support, mental health support, a meal, a hot cup of coffee,” says Meredith Gilbert, manager of Fredericton Transit and Parking Services. “We’re really taking a soft approach here.”

Fredericton City Hall is also making a clear distinction between panhandling and busking, which will be allowed with a permit.

Weston says busking could also be a solution to the city’s panhandling problem.

“Maybe they could teach the panhandlers that don’t know how to busk something that they could busk, something that they could do so people could watch them,” he suggests. “That way they wouldn’t get put in jail and fined. They would get paid by the city for doing it. I mean, it’s a good make-work project, and maybe that’s a bit tongue-in-cheek, but not that much.”

The parking commissionaires will begin training for their new responsibilities next month.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Nick Moore