Chicago City Hall. (Michael Izquierdo / WTTW News)

A proposal designed to crack down on groups responsible for a wave of anti-Semitic flyers on the city’s North Side is set for a final vote by the Chicago City Council on Wednesday.

Authored by Ald. Timmy Knudsen (43rd Ward), the measure allows officials to fine those who leave materials in public areas or on private property that appear to be hazardous or pose a threat to public safety. The City Council’s Health and Human Relations Committee unanimously endorsed the measure Friday afternoon.

Knudsen drafted the measure after an organization targeting the Anti-Defamation League, a group dedicated to fighting antisemitism, left around 60 to 80 flyers in bags on two blocks in Lincoln Park in April. Some of the flyers were in plastic bags with a substance that appeared to be rat poison, he said.

Despite an immediate response from the Chicago Police Department, Knudsen said it was frustrating that the incident appeared not to violate a specific city ordinance, limiting officials’ ability to hold accountable those responsible for the flyers.

After 10 versions of the ordinance won the backing of the city’s Commission on Human Relations and the Law Department, Knudsen said he was certain it would give the city the ability to crack down on hate groups.

If approved by the full City Council, violations of the ordinance could trigger fines of at least $500 and no more than $1,000.

The City Council expanded the city’s hate crimes law in December by requiring the Chicago Police Department and the Commission on Human Relations to track all “non-criminal hostile expression or action that may be motivated by bias against another person’s actual or perceived identity or status,” including race, color, sex, gender identity, age, religion, disability, national origin, ancestry or sexual orientation.

Commissioners must analyze that data and by Jan. 1, 2025, propose new ways of ensuring the city is comprehensively addressing both hate crimes and incidents motivated by hate that make Chicagoans feel unsafe and threatened.

Chicago officials recorded 303 hate crimes in 2023, many targeting Jewish Chicagoans and Muslim Chicagoans amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, according to Commission on Human Relations Commissioner Nancy Andrade.

Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]