So? I see no problem with this...

What are you Subby, some kinda hippie?

News Flash: Not all pandhandlers are broke.

Actually, there's a fairly sizable subculture or people in St. Pete who aren't disabled or homeless and continue to panhandle.

Apparently it's easier to make a livable wage by standing near certain intersections with a bucket than actually getting a real job.

So it begins... the plague of panhandlers WITH money... God have mercy on our souls...

Unpaid fine --> warrant for arrest --> arrest and imprisonment --> clean streets, homeless to homeful, outrageous prison costs! yaaay.

No hero tag? -1

Hmmm. Torn.

It's free enterprise at it's very best, but man they can be pretty irritating. I don't like them hanging around my neighborhood, and there is something of a safety issue, albeit somewhat marginal.

I dunno.

Try it, see if it works, and get back to us.

Panhandlers can collect A LOT of money.

Good. Memphis did something similar downtown, and it has made a tremendous difference.

Hopefully this will get the "fake homeless" woman who begs near my house here in San Antonio. No way this chick is homeless, she just claims she is.

Should go to jail for fraud.

Subby would have a point if the law allowed people who had some money to panhandle on the streets. I suspect it prohibits the rich as well as the poor doing so.

yeah

California is Super Cool to the Homeless

So what's the problem? IMO, most panhandlers are pros anyway.

Florida tag > *

I'm posting myself right here in the middle and I'm holding a cardboard sign that says "Will Werk For Total Fark Sponsur!"

Nobody in St. Pete/Tampa needs to panhandle ... unless you factor in their need for booze, drugs, tobbacco and whores. Nobody starves here, we have places to go for food, a place to stay etc., if you don't mind having to put up with minimal standards of behavior and not bringing alcohol/drugs on site. What the panhandlers want, it to suppliment the hand-outs with the stuff they can't get at the shelters OR to live on their own with no restrictions. These folks are well enough to work, they just don't want to. The genuine cases of need are taken care of, perhaps not in quite as lavish a manner as some bleeding hearts would have us do.

On a personal note...

What's with all the frickin' "god bless" on their pathetic cardboard begging signs? Apparently they get more results if they to tap into our (supposed) religious sensibilities / guilt complexes.

Back on topic...

On the other hand, I'm not sure what effect a financial fine is going to have. Might as well try wringing blood from a stone. Not sure what the answer is, so I suppose anything we do that does not sweeten the ecological niche for these folks is probably a good thing. OTOH, treating the symptom and not the cause is a formula for continued disaster...

//does not give money to random beggars

GIS James Ransom Florida

What's with the hand blur? Fapping away?

The [florida] tag incorporates asinine (and stupid and fail dumbass weird etc). Think of it like convenient shorthand

Subby... What exactly is wrong with St. Pete doing this? Dumbass tag would fit you well sir!

A couple of years ago one of our interns with too much time on his hands came up with this Will Work For Food franchise idea. Was too funny. Said things like "good corners still available" "Pre-distressed clothes and signs".
At the time I just thought it was funny, now I'm starting to think he actually went into buisness.

get a real job

Years ago, in San Diego, I gave a guy some money who said he'd work for food. He gave me a business card. Later I gave a guy a sandwich which he threw in the trash.


Give money to shelters, not street bums. They want money for boze and drugs, especially in places like Florida.

Paulson says theres a $1.3 Trillion bailout, so they'll have the $500 fine.

Does begging fall under freedom of speech?

Hmmm, the panhandle state says no panhandling...

Victimless crime. Anyone can stand on the street corner asking for anything, and others voluntarily give. Just because they found a way to work the system doesn't give anyone with a "real job" a legitimate complaint. My guess is that working people who complain about panhandlers are just jealous.

Ha ha, just kidding. Those guys are seriously annoying.

One Florida city is taking a stand that could make such activity illegal. But the ordinance proposed by St. Petersburg also would make the medians off limits for raising money for charitable causes, campaigning and selling newspapers

Good! Get the hell out of the street, you farking idiot. Your March of Dimes bucket doesn't make you any less of a hazard and an annoyance than the old bearded dude with a cardboard sign.

Animatronik: They want money for boze and drugs, especially in places like Florida.

That's pretty much what I spend it on too, so I can't really knock them for it too much
/Though I do agree with the shelters bit.

The TRUE measure of a society is how well they treat the poor.

/duh

panhandlers make way more than minimum wage. f them and the people who enable it

CastorPimp: panhandlers make way more than minimum wage. f them and the people who enable it

Jealous?

I've seen this. There's a guy who panhandles in front of the local post office. He aggressively chases off other panhandlers from "his" spot, because he makes at least $50 an hour there.

There isn't a street corner in the Tampa/Brandon area that doesn't have at least one of these bums begging for money. Everyone has the same, lame cardboard sign "Homeless - Hungry - please HeLp." But they have enough money for bottled water and cigarettes. They are a pox on the community. I don't care if they fine them. They should buy them bus tickets back to wherever they came from.

Oh, and every once and a while some older guy gets creative and let's everyone know he's a vet. Like there aren't any assistance programs for anyone in this country. I suspect that most of them are making a couple hundred or more tax free every day.

There are jobs available. Get off the corner and put your sorry ass back to work. And take a shower while you're at it.

bacccc The TRUE measure of a society is how well they treat the poor.

Empty meaningless quotation.

If you don't like panhandlers...look the other way. Say no and then f' off.

Buh. They make more $ than I do, and can probably afford the fine better than I could afford it. Whatever, this is a POSITIVE story.

Get a job!

P.S. Make fun of them if thats what gets you off. Its called freedom of speech and it goes both ways. I have no trouble ignoring these people, and I don't consider them to be a problem ( like the war is or the bamks are or the cost of gas is or gov't crime is or the 'Bilderberg 'group is ) sheesh! Get a life MORANS! Find a real cause, or maybe you'd just rather aim legal guns at the disenfranchised. What a stupid waste of time.

I watched one of the local "will work for food" scruffy panhandlers climb into his new-looking Ford 450 one day. He obviously could have afforded $500.

Typhoid 2008-09-21 11:46:37 AM
Buh. They make more $ than I do, and can probably afford the fine better than I could afford it. Whatever, this is a POSITIVE story.

This is an example of stupid. If yer jealous then go panhandling otherwise STFU!

On the one had the law is stupid since you are talking about fining somebody who has no money and trying to collect from people with no fixed address. The attempt to do so is a huge waste of government resources. On the other hand we dont want this country to end up looking like some third world piss hole like Mexico. We have to do something to stop such behavior. I spent several weeks in Mexico on business and the beggars are 100 times worse than anything I have seen in the U.S.. They dont stand on medians (which are rare anyway). They stand between lanes at the light. They will also come right up and knock on your window or simply put thier face 3 inches from it and stare through at you. The lanes are no wider than in the U.S. yet these people will stand there begging for money from cars stopped at the light, then when the light goes green, they just stand on the lane stripes while cars whiz by at 40 to 50 mph. One time I saw a girl no more than about 8 years old, holding a baby, while doing this.

Thank you all and have a nice day )

No Louis C.K. References?

btw the "homeless" guy in the article is a douche. "Like right now, I'm trying to make enough money to go to McDonald's." Moron. If you are actually poor you dont buy food at McDonalds. You can get 10 times as much food for the same money at a supermarket.

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." --Anatole France

Ima4nic8or: btw the "homeless" guy in the article is a douche. "Like right now, I'm trying to make enough money to go to McDonald's." Moron. If you are actually poor you dont buy food at McDonalds. You can get 10 times as much food for the same money at a supermarket.

The dollar menu saves!

I always give to panhandlers. Just maybe not money. I normally drop in a few condiment packets like ketchup, mustard, mayo or if they are lucky I have some sweet & sour sauce. I figure beggars can't be choosers. Better than my friend who use to drop them pesos.

Meanwhile, corporate bailouts continue unabated.

If it happens in Florida, then the Florida tag trumps everything else.

That is why a Florida tag exists.. I think.