I was thinking about the customers who find beggars appealing and pay them.
Using the word “customer” changes the dynamics of beggar politics. Cities have established the legal right to license street vendors.
I believe that the same logic and legal taxation opportunity applies to beggars who use city streets to sell their product… pathos… to interested customers. The beggars are competing directly with established non-profit businesses that sell pathos to the public.
The beggars should be licensed and it should be constitutional to license them.
Let's get a municipal jurisdiction to try this licensing of beggars approach and get some judicial rulings on the books.
I am against street begging for several reasons listed in this blog before. Beggars and street people drive away, tourists, shoppers, families and seriously degrade the vitality of retail business. They have a large economic cost, far out proportion to any need the society has for protecting them.