PDT 1/2 : Best place to panhandle

[SlowHabit]

Any place that has lots of girls walking around. It's not that the girls will give beggars moneys [though some might], it's the pressure/ego of giving moneys to the beggars in front of the girls.

[PITTM]

1: In front of Starbucks/coffee shop-Seems like a fairly decent idea. Lots of women who are more sympathetic, lots of people with change, etc.

2: In front of bar-Pretty bad, but high variance I would guess. You would probably be harassed a good bit, not get any real steady cash flow but I imagine with drunks around you might get bills from time to time.

3: In front of restaurant-Horrible, people who are eating in a restaurant are usually in a hurry, kind of short of temper and usually pay with credit, as opposed to starbucks, which probably gets more change.

4: On street in business/financial district-This is probably the worst if not the bar. Lots of people who look down on you more than average/really try keep as much for themselves as possible. I feel like this would be the worst, especially with the psychological effect of being surrounded by people with a ton of money.

5: On street in shopping district-Very good, maybe better than starbucks, people are happy, have lots of money readily available, and although most stuff is bought with credit a lot of smaller things will be bought with cash, meaning these people will be carrying change. These people are desperate to offload money any way possible.

6: On random neighborhood street-Pretty bad, people can easily avoid approaching you and would just drive up to their house, go inside and ignore you.

7: At busy corner/intersection-On one hand, kinda sweet because you have a ridiculous amount of traffic passing you. However, you have to deal with a few adverse factors like: people not stopping, people not even rolling down their windows and ignoring you, being surrounded by super polluted air all day.

For me, I would go shopping district, starbucks or maybe like a university campus or something with a bunch of super compassionate liberals or something.

[punkass]

You need to be places where people have coins.

Financial district sucks -- no one has change.
Restaurant/bar sucks because everyone uses credit/debit cards or rounds to nearest bill with tip.
Shopping District sucks because of same credit/debit issue.
Random neighborhood street corner -- someone will probably call the police on you. They'll say they saw you doing drugs or something to get you away.

Busy corner sounds good. With plastic being accepted everywhere, including fast food, no place is good anymore.

[adanthar]

The subway by a mile. The regulars in the NYC subways supposedly make 20-30K a year. It's hard to beat that without the captive audience.

Related to this, if you perform some kind of added service (playing an instrument, selling newspapers/old magazines/dollar store castoffs you picked up, making people laugh), your profits go up, too. This is easier to do in a location where people walk slowly, there are lots of couples out on dates, and they have spare change. Starbucks/shopping district areas are therefore better than the rest of the list, but you still can't beat the subways.

why do I know these things [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[ClassicBob]

As pyromaniac mentioned, panhandlers don't last long in front of any Starbucks I've ever worked at. I run them off immediately.

[astroglide]

there was a salvation army bell-ringer in the entrance of a grocery store i visited last night, and he made me wonder how much credit/debit card transactions have decreased their take over the years. i know that i basically never have change, and if i do it ends up straight into a cupholder in my car or series of jars at home. carrying it around irritates me.

[RustedCorpse]

An ex girlfriend of mine would panhandle in various parts of NYC and record the results. It was about ten years ago but she swears by fifth avenue subway entrances.

[limon]

you have to assume bums know what theyre doing and gravitate/go back to places where they make the most cash. the bum/person ratio at university campus is the highest and it gets higher as the campus gets more liberal. eugene and berkely are just bum heaven. in 2nd place id choose a coffee shop but peets is defn. better than sbux and something more hippie would even be better. if you were at peets w/ a dog youd prob make over $100 a day.

[J.A.Sucker]

[ QUOTE ]
you have to assume bums know what theyre doing and gravitate/go back to places where they make the most cash. the bum/person ratio at university campus is the highest and it gets higher as the campus gets more liberal. eugene and berkely are just bum heaven. in 2nd place id choose a coffee shop but peets is defn. better than sbux and something more hippie would even be better. if you were at peets w/ a dog youd prob make over $100 a day.

[/ QUOTE ]

Independant coffee shop in Boulder or Berkeley = Greatest place on earth for panhandling. Limon is correct (as always).

[xxThe_Lebowskixx]

Starbucks first, the rest seem horrible.