Fighting With Homeless People At The Chinese Restaurant

Yes, I got into a verbal altercation with a homeless guy outside of a Chinese Restaurant on 50th. Now, let’s start breaking this down. Me and my friend James like to a visit a certain Chinese Restaurant. Now the last three times we’ve visited this place there’s been a guy with a bottle of Windex and he approaches the people going in asking to wash their windows for a buck. Today, he decided to get pissy with me and that did not go well. More after the jump.

So, I have one of those work trucks that NEVER gets washed. Its one of those that people say, if you washed it, it would fall apart. I’m talking bashed fender, peeling clear coat, and lots of scratches. So we go to the Chinese Restaurant and the guys says, “wash your windows for a buck? So I can get some food”. I just kept going and said “sorry man, I got nothing”. Now I’d be lying If I told you I would have given him some change if I would have had it, but I still didn’t have it. So as we walk past him, with an attitude he shouts, “oh, you go and enjoy your food, while I’m out here, blah, blah blah” or something to that effect. I just said “okay, I’ll eat enough for the both of us” and kept moving. Now lets pause here and I’ll tell you that this guy was pretty clean cut, hair trimmed, shaved and so on. This guy was/is running a scam, he’s about as far from homeless as I am.  I also know when someone is giving me attitude.  So, continuing on, I start to walk in the restaurant and there’s a REAL homeless guy on the stoop (hair disheveled, vacant stare, not asking for anything, just there).
So we go in and have our lunch and this little altercation starts eating on me. When we finished I went to the front desk girl and I told her, “listen this guy that’s always out front is starting to get REALLY aggressive, and if he’ll get aggressive with me and my bro, imaging how he’s treating your regular customers”. I pretty much figured that would be it. I just wanted them to know that If they want to run a homeless shelter, that’s cool, but I far less likely to return if I have to deal with these jerks. Well, lo and behold the lady recognized my voice and we chatted just a little bit. I went to leave and figured she’d go tell a manager or the cops or something but then she was right behind us. She said “where is he” and my bro pointed out where he was. At that point he starts jaw jacking us all over again. I just flipped him off and said “f-you bro, you’re gone”, and turned to walk away. The girl is telling him to leave and I’m feeling bad about her being in the situation and the guy starts cussing us again. I turned back around to back up the girl and I told the guy if he didn’t shut the f- up that I was going to slap his head of his shoulders. I then turned around to leave and he started cussing us AGAIN. This is what my friends all “a cricket” he only makes noise when your back is turned. I just told him to get the f- out of there and the girl seemed to be making some progress with him, so me and my bro went to my truck. As we pulled out to leave, we saw that the girl had been replaced by a stocky fellow who was still trying to get the guy to leave. The guy was now on the sidewalk pulling that old third grade “this is public sidewalk , you can’t do anything about it”. I rolled down my window and talked to the defacto bouncer and just told him, ‘sorry dude, but this guy is just getting pushy and I thought you guys should know about” and of course the fake homeless guy starts mouthing again. I just shook the bouncers hand, told the other guy to go f- himself and left.

Okay, so there’s the story and here’s my commentary on it. There are tons of organizations in town to help the down and out. The stoop or front of a Chinese restaurant is not the place to go to get that help. Being there the last THREE times I’ve visited tells me that you’re running a little scam. Now, if the restaurant is cool with these fellows hanging out and grifting their customers, that’s fine, but they need to know it will make me less likely to come back.
I know some of you bleeding hearts will hate the analogy, but a lot of these people are like dogs. If you feed them, they start expecting it. If you don’t spank them on the nose when they are bad, they’ll get even more aggressive. In my opinion, it’s time that we start telling these people NO, so they’ll get help through the proper agencies. It’s time to tell businesses, if you allow this to be a hangout for the homeless, I won’t be back. To my bros out there, think of these guys harassing your wives, girlfriends and sisters. It’s time to step up. It doesn’t have to be an aggressive situation for anybody. Just let the manager know you don’t appreciate it. The management or the cops can run the people off.
We should be able to go to our favorite restaurants, drug stores, the Depot District and other places without being harassed. Okay, so there you go. You’ve heard my story. Please feel free to comment. Have you noticed these guys getting more aggressive? Do you think I overreacted? Should we all just give them a dollar so they won’t cause a problem? I’m anxious to hear what you guys have to say.