Cop attacks homeless, disabled woman; chokes her service dog. :((((

[TorchTheWitch]

50. that isn't panhandling

The man was paid for a service that was requested. Panhandling is stopping people to ask them for money with nothing in return and not for any particular cause (like the local high school's cheerleaders asking for donations for new uniforms, etc.). Or it's also starting to perform a service not requested and expecting money in return like those people that leap on your car at red lights and just start washing your windshield. Panhandlers are aggressive and harassing and can even be threatening.

Panhandling is illegal because it's harassment. It probably became illegal in most places when panhandlers made it their job and continually harassed people for money and not taking "no thanks" for an answer. They'd follow you, physically block you, get right up in your face, and practically shove their hands in your pockets. Then it was on to the next person, and the next and next, etc. Really aggressive ones could make hundreds of dollars in a day. Trains stations were hell on earth... there would be dozens of them, and you'd get harassed and blocked and followed by one after the other until it took a half an hour just to get to the stairs.

In I think most jurisdictions you can sit with a sign requesting money, and people can give or not, but you can't ASK anyone for it. Of course, emergencies sometimes happen and people will beg someone for a little money to put just enough gas in their car to get to the nearest gas station that accepts cash or whatever. That's not considered panhandling UNLESS the person is using the hard luck story continually with different people so as to try to get around the law.

There was a woman with a practically brand new SUV that used to hang out in the parking lot of the supermarket I used to go to every night for hours using the "help me, I ran out of gas, please give me $10" story. One night she hit me up once when I went into the store and again when I came out not remembering that just a few minutes earlier she had already hit me up. She never remembered me all the times she hit me up night after night either. I used to stop at that grocery store almost every night after work since it was open 24 hours, it was right on my way home, and there always seemed to be something I needed that I had run out of. I guess enough people finally complained about her that she went elsewhere. She's probably doing the same thing right now in some other store parking lot with the same hard luck story. Have to hand it to her though every time she delivered the story it sounded legit. I used to wonder how much she made every night. She always hit up for $10. Odd though if you said you only had $5 she'd still try to get you to give $10.