A homeless man has been charged after a driver in a convertible was attacked with a squeegee in downtown Toronto.
The vintage convertible was stopped at the Dundas Street and Spadina Avenue intersection shortly before noon on Thursday when it was approached by a man with a squeegee, police said.
The driver said he told the man not to wash the car. The man then began hitting the vehicle with the squeegee, and jumped into the car, the driver told police.
Police said the man was begging for money.
"The gentleman was aggressively panhandling at the time," Det. Peter Karpow told CTV.ca.
Derek Leonard, 27, of no fixed address, faces one charge of assault with a weapon.
The altercation, the latest incident involving panhandlers in Toronto, prompted one city councillor to call for a crackdown.
"The downtown area is out of control with panhandlers, squeegees, and so on, and the public is generally fed up," Coun. Case Ootes said.
A woman named Mary, who runs a downtown parking lot, believes young panhandlers are just lazy.
"Most kids are having it very easy right now," she said. "People are feeding them, and everybody's helping them out -- they don't want to help themselves."
CTV News talked to one young panhandler, who agreed.
"I'm too lazy to do anything ... work bores me," he said.
The panhandler issue in Toronto came to the forefront when a St. Catharines man was beaten and stabbed downtown last month by four transients. The victim later died of his injuries.
With a report from CTV's Austin Delaney
