Kelley Cutler, who is working for the homeless outreach organization in San Francisco, shared a photo of the alleged citation on Twitter, along with the caption, “A senior came to the office for citation defense because he received a ticket for eating pizza at the bus stop.”
The San Francisco Examiner reports that the Coalition on Homelessness brought attention to the citation after the elderly homeless man had seek help from the group of volunteers. The man had allegedly told one of the volunteers that he bought the pizza to celebrate his friend’s birthday.
While eating in public areas is prohibited in San Francisco, Cutler had expressed her sentiments that this was a “real waste of police services”. She said that the man was actually more amused than outraged by the issued ticket.
“Some people get agitated or upset, but he was being a good sport, he laughed about it.” Cutler said.
Although Grace Gatpandan, a SF Police Dept spokeperson, has assured the man that the citation would not progress as the judges normally dismiss such ticket citations for most homeless or any low-income residents, the court usually do not require the citizen to pay for the tickets which usually carry a fine of $250. She also noted that these kind of citations would often take about over 20 hours of legal work, which isn’t really a big deal but would going through the whole process would be the only consequence.
Gatpandan had also stressed about why the police officers weren’t lenient to issuing the ticket saying there had been many complains from the multiple residents in the bus stop vicinity of people drinking and smoking in the public area and also stating that there was a recent stabbing at the said bus shelter. The officers were merely doing there job and are taking precautions to avoid unpleasant incidents.
