A Michigan car dealership used an unusual approach to warn the public about a panhandler – and has received an outpouring of support on social media for it.
Brighton Honda in Brighton, Mich., is near a busy intersection and offramp from I-96, a spot where two men believed to be a father and son panhandled for a year, one of them right in front of the Honda store.
“We tried to be polite,” dealership general manager Bert Justice told Automotive News. So the dealership offered one of the men a job as a porter. The panhandler declined, saying he made twice as much doing what he was doing.
The men then tried not to be polite, Justice said, with heated words between them and passing drivers, and the older man exposing himself to urinate into a cup in front of motorists.
So on Tuesday, the dealership erected a sign that said:
“Please do not give anything to this panhandler. We offered him a full-time job at $ 10.00/HR. He said ‘I make more than any of you,’ and he did not want a job, please donate to a more worthy cause.”
The sign has made the rounds on social media, including Facebook and a high-ranking post on Reddit, where 85,000 people have liked the post and more than 7,000 have commented.
Morgan Holt of nearby Howell, Mich., said she drives by on her way to work and has seen the man outside of the dealership for the past two years. She posted a photo of the sign on social media.
WHMI-FM reported that some residents of Livingston County, which is north of Ann Arbor, reported they’ve seen the man and two others park a car down the road then walk to the exit ramp, and that they are often rude, “yelling at people for not giving them anything” or declining food when offered instead of money. The radio station reported that state police had arrested a father and son in that area on investigation of disorderly conduct and vagrancy. Another Reddit post showed a photo of a man being handcuffed.
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