In New York, as in most big cities, the squeegee men are just one more unpleasant fact of fife in the daily urban assault on sensibilities. Along with traffic and noise, vagrancy pales as a problem in comparison to violent crime. But New York, with a new mayor, is pledging to get tough (again) on the bums. Throughout his campaign, Rudy Giuliani said New Yorkers were filled with “a sense of dread,” their “civil right to safety” denied not only by car thieves and drug dealers, but by nuisances like panhandlers and squeegee people. Now the new police commissioner, William Bratton, promises he’ll no longer tolerate “quality of life” offenses. It’s an interesting target in a city where in 1992 there were 1,995 murders, 2,815 rapes and 91,239 robberies; at Giuliani’s inauguration last week, protesters complained about the planned priorities. But Bratton, Boston’s former top cop, argues that anarchy is contagious. It’s the brokenwindow thesis: by attacking low-level disorder–begging, urinating, drinking, graffiting–serious felonies will be deterred. (Like the one committed by the lady who once pulled a revolver on Donald at Delancey)

Bratton, chief of the New York transit police from 1990 to ‘92, won acclaim for cutting subway crime. Fighting vagrancy citywide will be harder. Prior attempts have failed because of sheer numbers. Estimates put the homeless count in New York as high as 86,000. Public shelters and private agencies don’t have resources to handle that population; police can shoo a person from this park bench or that heating grate, yet that’s a shell game–they just move to another block. Panhandling or holding a sign on a public street can’t be stopped because the activities involve speech and are protected by the First Amendment; vagrancy laws have long been suspect at the U.S. Supreme Court. The Squeegees, too, may not be committing any crime at all. It’s disorderly conduct only if traffic is blocked, assault only if the motorist is accosted. “The squeegee crackdown is an expensive diversionary tactic,” says Norman Siegel of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “The police will claim victory, giving the appearance they’re doing something about crime.”

Other sick-and-tired-of-it cities are renewing efforts to crack down. Atlanta, Chicago, Seattle, Minneapolis, Honolulu and Portland, Ore., have all passed some antivagrant legislation. A few are even learning about the windshield brigands. In July Chicago, faced with Squeegees who approached motorists in parking lots to wash the entire car, made “street hustling” punishable by a stiff fine and sometimes even a night in jail. “Here a guy is trying to make a legitimate buck and they criminalize it,” complains John Donahue of the local Coalition for the Homeless. “If kids did this in the suburbs, they’d be lauded.” Miami police continue their rousting of windshield washers, though spokesman Raymond Lang says arrests “are fruitless.”

California faces the biggest hurdles because of a 1991 court ruling that declared the state’s 100-year anti-panhandling law, unconstitutional. Cities like Santa Barbara and Long Beach have adopted ordinances against overnight camping in public places. (The ACLU is suing.) San Francisco, long a bastion of liberal tolerance, has issued 4,300 citations since August for public intoxication and “intending to camp” (read: sleeping); if nothing was done, wrote one columnist, that city would become “skid row with a skyscraper.” San Diego, where locals call it “panhassling,” is enforcing a nuisance law against blocking traffic.

Disorder in the streets isn’t always caused by the homeless. In Miami Beach there’s a new fad–drive-by haranguings. With the popularity of hotels and outdoor eateries along Ocean Drive have come regular invasions by young mainlanders who like nothing so much as cruising by in their convertibles, stereos ablazing, yelling “Faggot!” and other imprecations. This fall the city commission passed an ordinance Prohibiting Ocean drivers from passing the same spot repeatedly. It might be easier if the cops let the Squeegees work Ocean Drive, instead.