Only a fool would be surprised when the inevitable happens. So of course Mayor de Blasio must be shocked that anyone would take advantage of free stuff.
Gabrielle Fonrouge reports in the New York Post:
Hey, it’s cheaper than getting an apartment.
Bums have been turning the city’s free curbside Wi-Fi kiosks into their own personal living rooms, setting up chairs, watching movies — and guzzling liquor until they vomit.
One man set up a mini camp — complete with a couch, newspaper-bin footrest and umbrella ceiling — next to one of the high-tech huts in Murray Hill, gripped Christine Smith, 24, who lives near the Third Avenue location.
The plugged-in vagrant lived there for three weeks, she told The Post.
“It was essentially his living room. He had a stereo he would plug in and would be playing all the time, and he would be charging all of his devices,’’ Smith said.
“He was blocking the sidewalk, he had furniture out there and everything. It was a nuisance.”
The kiosks are the brainchild of the de Blasio administration and aimed at bridging the “digital divide” by bringing Internet access to everyone.
The Wi-Fi hot spots allow free unlimited online access to the public, as well as USB charging ports and gratis domestic phone calls.
Imagine you are an entrepreneur who risked everything to open a store – an establishment that pays lots of taxes, and, as most such small operations do, struggles to make payroll, rent, utilities, and the other responsibilities that come with operating a legitimate business. And the city builds a kiosk free apartment complete with wifi on the sidewalk and starts emitting smells, noises, and other threatening or nauseating signals to the pedestrians who pass by your store. You get to pay for customer repellant!
Vagrancy is a terrible problem. People just give up on their own ability to care for themselves or anyone else. Liberals believe that making that decision as painless, even comfortable as possible is compassionate. But of course it lures more people into becoming a burden on others.
The de Blasio nightmare continues to unfold for New Yorkers.
Source: American Thinker
