The humble payphone stands accused of running with the wrong crowd. As a result, callboxes are being swept from the pavement along with the criminals who allegedly rely on them to conduct their illicit activities.

In a growing number of American cities, payphones are being legislated into scarcity because they are perceived to be magnets for street criminals. Big cities such as Oakland and Los Angeles have, over the past several years, actively pursued the implementation of legislation to limit the proliferation of payphones as part of wider campaigns to "crack down" on crime.

There is no small amount of irony in the fact that payphones are gradually being driven from the streets at a time when another crime-affiliated artefact - the handgun - may enjoy a laxer regulatory regime under new US President George W. Bush.

Last year, for example, the city of Oakland, California debated legislation designed to raise the cost of operating payphones - as well as allowing local residents to offer their opinions on whether a payphone should be installed at a given location. The legislation also aimed to ban the location of payphones outside liquor stores.

Local politicians blamed payphones for enabling the conduct of prostitution and drug dealing in local neighbourhoods and subsequently passed legislation that made it far more difficult - and considerably less economic - to install payphones in certain parts of the city.

According to Martin Mattes, a partner at the San Francisco-based law firm of Nossaman, Guthner, Knox & Elliot, the city of Oakland created a whole new bureaucracy solely designed to help bring down the payphone population.

Mr Mattes, who acts as counsel for the California Payphone Association, says the problems started when Oakland's Community and Economic Development Agency proposed a payphone permitting system that would require the hiring of several professionals to enforce notice requirements, inspect sites, hold hearings, rule on permit applications, and defend the expected denial of many applications on appeal.

He says that creating such a bureaucracy was estimated to entail costs requiring permit fees of $265 per payphone, with renewal fees of $80 per payphone per year - and that the city estimated that the proposed system would rid the City of 25 per cent of its payphones.

It is worth noting that the proposal to which Mr Mattes refers is taking place within a highly political environment, largely created by veteran California politician, former California governor, presidential candidate and current Mayor of Oakland Jerry Brown.

It should come as no surprise that first among Mr Brown's stated goals for his term of office is "to reorganize the Police Department and formulate a crime reduction strategy based on geographic accountability".

Mr Mattes says that Oakland has thus been listening closely to the demands of its police - and that law enforcement groups have suggested that payphones are perceived as "a locus for criminal of undesirable activity" in the city.

"It's common that law enforcement has concerns about payphones in high crime areas - either because they can be used as a basis for drug deals or prostitution - or they can be used (by undesirable elements) as an excuse for hanging out," he says. "(Payphones) can make it difficult (for police) to get people to move along because they make an excuse that they are just using the payphone."

Mr Mattes points out that there are many legitimate users of payphones in the same economically depressed parts of the city that also suffer from a high crime rate. The poor and homeless often cannot afford a permanent phone line - or have no place to put one - and thus rely on payphones. Yet, under the guise of reducing crime in their neighborhoods, those people may now lose the very instrument that lets them report those crimes when they happen.

All this has led to a situation where getting a payphone installed in Oakland is a lot tougher than it used to be. Mr Mattes says the new law, which was adopted last year, is "a very onerous ordinance for payphone providers" for a number of reasons.

Not only does it cost payphone providers $265 for a permit for the phone (with an $85 annual renewal fee), but it also requires that payphone operators notify all owners of property within 300 ft of a proposed new payphone in advance of the installation - and allow them time to object to that installation.

Payphone providers must also provide evidence to the city that they have made such notification, as well as provided "detailed architectural style plans" of the payphone installation. They must also involve the owner of the property on which the payphone is being installed and get that owner to become a party to the permit application.

And finally, the new legislation includes prohibitions against payphones inside - or associated with - establishments that sell alcoholic beverages. Notable exceptions to this rule were allowed for large sports facilities and grocery outlets.

Needless to say, all of this has not set well with payphone operators in the city - and they have threatened legal action against it. Mr Mattes says that as a result of these threats, the city has suspended enforcement of the permit requirements until they have amended them to take account of such concerns.

So for the moment, the payphone providers in Oakland are on hold. But they face an ongoing battle in other US cities - in addition to the continuing commercial challenges they face from mobile phones, pagers and other alternatives to the public callbox.