Daily BrewQuebec man forced to pay panhandler $8K over hateful email
Here's a riddle: A Montreal panhandler spends an evening outside a liquor store and receives only sporadic donations, yet she somehow ends up $8,000 richer. How did this happen?
The answer? She waited for a loudmouth to come around and threaten to shoot her in the neck.
CBC News reports that the Quebec human rights commission determined the woman suffered a loss of dignity in an incident dating back to 2010.
The woman, who suffers from a degenerative bone disease that apparently keeps her from working, would spend a couple evenings a week panhandling outside a Montreal liquor store.
One customer grew frustrated by her constant presence and wrote the store an email, railing against beggars and calling the woman a nuisance.
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In that letter, the customer described the woman as overweight and a “drunk” with “no apparent IQ.”
The letter goes on to talk about the city abolishing its prohibition on begging, and the problems he believed it has created. He then suggests five “solutions,” including one labelled the “Chinese solution” that proposes “a bullet to the neck and send the bill for the bullet to the deceased bum’s family.”
Harsh words, indeed. Especially coming from someone who spends enough time at a liquor store to grow frustrated with the constant presence of someone else at the same liquor store.
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This same customer was in such high standing with store management that, upon receiving the email, they attempted to contact police directly. When told they couldn't file a complaint on the woman's behalf, they handed her a copy of the email.
According to CBC, the human rights commission decision reads: “Any ordinary person in the same situation as the victim, and anyone who was the target of these words, would have suffered a loss of dignity because of the contempt demonstrated by the defendant.”
And that is why, when you write a letter complaining about the panhandler outside your favourite liquor store, you do so with the most polite tone possible.
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