NBC 29 had a story a couple of days back about people sitting on the mall, asking you for money. Apparently there is city code for this sort of thing. Take it away, 29:
Apparently the city has also set up some panhandling-free zones, four intersections to be exact. You can’t panhandle within 300 feet of Emmet and Barracks, Emmet and Hydraulic, the Free Bridge, and Main Street and Ridge/McIntire.
Working on the Mall, I get hit up for change roughly once or twice a day. And I can say with great certainty that Charlottesville has the most polite panhandlers of any city I’ve lived in. Perhaps they’ve read the city code.
Really, the most aggressive guy I’ve met wasn’t so much aggressive as passive-aggressive. A couple of mornings ago, I was walking to get some coffee. I had two dollars on my person (end of the month, you know?). Weathered-Looking Bearded Guy is hunched motionless under an umbrella in front of the old A &N store. I walk past, wondering if he’s dead.
He is not. He asked for some change.
And here I messed up. I lied. I said I didn’t have any, which was true in a way, because without at least two cups of $1 coffee my cortical synapses don’t transmit for shit, in so many words. But I did have money right then. I had an extra dollar. Usually, if I can’t spare any money, I tell folks, sorry, I can’t help you out right now.
He goes back to looking dead. I go grab a coffee. And a minute later, I walk past him, cup in my hand. He shows signs of life once again, muttering loudly about liars and such in that way people have of talking about you without having to talk to you.
So, sorry Weathered-Looking Bearded Guy. I shouldn’t have lied to you. I should have told you that I was a little short then. But you kind of startled me by being alive.