The word from the street
PHILIP
“Hey, what are you doing here?”
TONY
“You know, I take the bus too sometimes.”
PHILIP
“So when you ask people for a bus token, you actually use them? I figured you sold the tickets to get money …”
TONY
“Well how am I supposed to get around if I don’t use the bus? I don’t exactly have a car, if you know what I mean.”
PHILIP
“I gotta admit, you’ve got a point there.”
TONY
“Look what I got.”
PHILIP
“No.”
TONY
“Yup, two of ’em. $220 for breaking the Highway Traffic Act.”
PHILIP
“What for?”
“Well, I didn’t come to a complete stop at a stop sign and also I didn’t have a bell.”
PHILIP
“They’re hittiing you up for $110 for not coming to a complete stop on your bicycle?”
TONY
“Yup. They got me on that one.”
TONY
“Got myself another ticket this morning.”
PHILIP
“No.”
TONY
“Yup. Cop comes up to me, gives me a ticket for panhandling near a transit vehicle. You what the transit vehicle is? The streetcar; how am I gonna be on the side walk and not be near a street car. If you can figure that out, you could probably win the Nobel Prize.
“So as soon as the cop comes up to me and starts writing me up a ticket, six people come out of Timothy’s and start giving him hell but he says he’s’just doing my job. So he gives me the ticket and he feels so bad, he comes back and offers to buy me a coffee. So he bought me a tea.”
Here’s Tony’s “Standing While Homeless” (aka SWH) ticket from last week. I had said it was for $96; it’s actually for $65.
Philip
TONY
“A cop gave me a ticket yesterday.”
PHILIP
“For what? For being homeless?”
TONY
“Almost. I was standing at the top of the street and this cruiser stopped and the cop gave me a ticket. She said I was panhandling near a bank machine which was an offence. So I asked if I could at least get a warning first, since I didn’t know about the law but he officer didn’t budge at all.
“So today a friend tells me that CFRB radio said that a lot of street people had been ticketed recently for all sorts of things. The guy on the radio said that it costs way more to lock folks up than the city will ever collect in fines. No kidding! I mean, where am I going to find the ninety-six bucks anyway?”
Homeless Man Speaks 