Street Canvassers

[JasonParis]

Or ramp it up a notch and do punany and penis?

 

[Urban Shocker]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f6/Mating_earthworms.jpg

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

Or ramp it up a notch and do punany and penis?

get your mind outta the gutter! i was talking about these...

nothing like some good ole T & A!

 

[dowlingm]

The Professional Panhandling Plague

 

[Admiral Beez]

An excellent article, thanks for posting.

I'd love to see New York's Midtown Community Court in Toronto. No longer would we be plagued by beggars getting ticketed and not showing up, or being ignored by police too apathetic to issue tickets in the first place.

However, I think Toronto's experience would be more like Seattle's in the article, where a leftist council and general attitude would be against taking any real action against panhandling.

 

[Mot]

Sick Kids Beggers are everywhere yet almost always friendly and still smile when I say "No Thanks". I don't mind them at all. We wouldn't want Toronto to become the right wing Rudy Guiliani police state when he ran New York.

However, I understand the removal of the windsheild washers, they pose a danger being in the roadway. These other beggers are only annoying if you let them be.

 

[PukeGreen]

The Professional Panhandling Plague

That is a good article, though it doesn't actually refer to charity street canvassers (chuggers) which are the subject of this thread. It discusses the different ongoing debate about banning aggressive panhandling -- something I support, despite my liberal leanings. Handing over a few bucks to support someone's drug or alcohol habit isn't really "helping" them anyway. For the record, I've noticed that most of downtown Toronto seems to be much better now in terms of aggressive beggars than even 5 or 10 years ago.

The chuggers are a different thing altogether; I've certainly never actually feared that a Sick Kids canvassers was about to mug me! But to me the "goodness" of their causes and the "friendliness" of their manner is irrelevant. When I used to encounter one or a two chuggers a week, it was tolerable; now that it's twice that every day, it's a downright annoyance. I still maintain that I should have a right to be able to walk down my street peacefully without being subjected to institutionalized begging.

I often wonder if the chuggers will reach a saturation turning point: in theory, they are approaching many of the same people every day. With more and more chuggers on the same number of streets, eventually everyone who is inclined to give to those charities will have already given, and the rest of us will be thoroughly annoyed, and the charities will move on to new fund raising tactics.

 

[spider]

Not just downtown, they are everywhere, even Don Mills.

Are these the same people who arrived at my front door a couple of weeks ago asking if I had ever heard of Sick Kids Hospital and handing me a rather tattered looking brochure?

Lacking the wit to say I had never heard of such a hospital the pitch about supporting it commenced. Was I being asked to send a cheque to the hospital? Well no, not really, at this point the pitch became rather circuitous morphing finally to the hospitals role in international disasters.

The Sick Kids Hospital is an NGO on the international scene. Who knew?

I suggested gently that they might want to re-work their shtick if they expected to see any money from me.

They left empty handed except for the beat up brochure that they asked me to return because they were running out of them.

 

[Urban Shocker]

It isn't that difficult - all you have to do is put a sign on your front door that says: No canvassers, No solicitors, No junk mail. If you get a knock on the door just look out the window - you're under no obligation to open the door if you don't like the look of the person on your property.

 

[Admiral Beez]

It isn't that difficult - all you have to do is put a sign on your front door that says: No canvassers, No solicitors, No junk mail. If you get a knock on the door just look out the window - you're under no obligation to open the door if you don't like the look of the person on your property.

Even better, get a door intercom. They're popular here in Cabbagetown since if you're up on the 3rd or 4th floor of your semi or row house, you don't have to trump down the stairs to chase off the Jehovahs.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Don't they have windows on the upper floors of Cabbagetown houses?

People will leave if you don't answer the door.

 

[Therion]

Then there's that guy always in front of that shoe store on Yonge Street (Del Grande) trying to hand you a photocopy of his "deals", and further up the street, the omnipresent Black History folks, trying to sell photocopies of stuff you can easily get on Wikipedia. A naive fellow in the office once actually though those copies were free handouts, and was then rudely notified that was not the case and asked to pay up.

That happened to me once. The guy basically shoved it in my hands, and I'm like, "thanks!". Then he asks for a toonie for it. I gave it back to him. Must be a great con, though, they always seem to have such nice suits on.

 

[CTNguyen]

Aggressive and Questionable Charity

I do not wish to invite retribution, so I will refrain from giving any info that identifies myself or the group in question. My entire business and life is at stake here. It is not worth losing it all to this questionable group but my business is suffering because of them, so please bear with me.



Recently, a group of self-proclaimed volunteers have been actively asking for donations everyday on the street in front of my business. They work in partners or small groups and target one person at a time to nag for donations. The target is surrounded and not allowed to leave unless they donate or yell, scream, and/or violently wave the air to shoo them away (the last method may result in threats from the volunteer about calling the cops for harassment). They are very persistent and will follow their targets for a distance if the street isn't busy at the moment. Even if you were using a cane, walker, or otherwise clearly require mobility assistance, they would not let go. The majority of folks around here also don't speak a word of English or French. They are helpless against this group and most donate their way out before their joints, bladder, or sanity give out while they are trapped by these volunteers.

I am getting an increasing number of complaints from my customers about these volunteers. Some have even told me that they'd stay away from my street as soon as they spot one of these volunteers and therefore, not come to my store.

Upon asking for ID, one of the volunteers suddenly shifted to her sad puppy face and asked why I was being so rude, looking like she was about to cry from being bullied. I asked her to stop begging for donations in front of my store, and she returned with a threat of calling the police for "harassing" her and being racist (against my own race? Oooookay).

I've seen them around various neighborhoods, streets, and malls in the GTA since 2006 or 2007.



Do I have the right to ask them to leave? Nevermind their tactics, their presence alone is driving customers away, not just mine but those of every store along the block. I am unable to obtain any ID to contact their supervisors or their organization. What are my rights when I deal with them? What information must they provide to me?

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Record their antics (video would be perfect), call the police - and dump a copy on youtube. And yes you should post the name of the group.

AoD

 

[ShonTron]

Name the group. Chuggers (charity muggers) are a nuisance - and they include Sick Kids (you support sick kids? - you monster!), Greenpeace, Amnesty International, Medicins Sans Frontiers but this takes the cake. There, I named some names of charities (and very legit charities) that somewhat annoy me, but want to know who these uncharacteristically uber-obnoxious ones are.

The ones that really get me are the "Black History" men on Yonge. They are really bad sometimes, and have little idea what their aim is (as they bug everyone that passes). Since you have referred to a "her", I doubt you are referring to them.