There's a push in Florida to encourage a police crackdown on unsolicited pizza menus and other fliers in hotels, the Orlando Sentinel reports.
What's so dangerous about a flimsy piece of paper that advertises a $9.99 pizza pie and a 1-800 number?
The handouts are really said to be a ruse by criminals to convince hungry tourists to give out their names, credit-card information and hotel room number. They apparently pose such a threat to both tourists - and Florida's $60 billion-a-year tourism industry - that even Walt Disney World's backing legislation designed to fight them, the paper says.
Supporters of a pizza-flier crackdown pin their hopes on the proposed "Tourist Safety Act of 2011," which passed a House committee last week.
The proposed legislation would make it easier for police to arrest people who illegally distribute these fliers in hotels. It would allow police to seize the workers' cars, as is allowed in drug-related cases.
It would not affect the distribution of materials from legitimate companies such as Pizza Hut or Domino's Pizza, which have contracts with hotels and permission to be on the property, the Sentinel has said.
Central Florida hoteliers want Florida to take action because they claim criminals use the pizza menus as a ruse to obtain tourists' credit-card numbers, steal their identities and/or burglarize their hotel rooms, the paper says.
A year ago, the St. Petersburg Times quoted State Rep. Kevin Ambler, R-Tampa, as describing the pizza flier ruse as a "problem of epidemic proportions" and possibly "part of an organized crime syndicate."
The bill's sponsor, Rep. Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island, linked the fliers to an attempted rape and the beating of a security guard at Daytona Beach hotels last fall. The legislation "gives law enforcement the tools it needs to keep tourists safe," Crisafulli told the Sentinel.
Lobbyists for Walt Disney World, as well as Central Orlando's hotel association, appeared last week to support the legislation, the paper says.
Similar legislation almost passed last year but died because of an unrelated political debate over abortion, the Sentinel says. Whether it succeeds this time remains to be seen, since it has attracted some skepticism on both sides of the aisle.
Rep. Daphne Campbell, D-Miami, called it "ridiculous" to jail people for passing out fliers in hotels, particularly when the state faces a nearly $4 billion budget shortfall.
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