Squeegee man
Encyclopedia
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
), squeegee punk (Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
), squeegee merchant (London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
) or squeegee bandit is a person who, washcloth and squeegee
Squeegee
A squeegee, squilgee or sometimes squimjim, is an onomatopoeically named tool with a flat, smooth rubber blade, used to remove or control the flow of liquid on a flat surface...
in hand, wipes windshield
Windshield
The windshield or windscreen of an aircraft, car, bus, motorbike or tram is the front window. Modern windshields are generally made of laminated safety glass, a type of treated glass, which consists of two curved sheets of glass with a plastic layer laminated between them for safety, and are glued...
s of cars stopped in traffic
Traffic
Traffic on roads may consist of pedestrians, ridden or herded animals, vehicles, streetcars and other conveyances, either singly or together, while using the public way for purposes of travel...
and then solicits money from drivers.
Canada
In TorontoToronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
, Calgary
Calgary
Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...
and Winnipeg
Winnipeg
Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...
they are known as squeegee kids and they were mostly tolerated, since they were considered to be working for money, rather than begging
Begging
Begging is to entreat earnestly, implore, or supplicate. It often occurs for the purpose of securing a material benefit, generally for a gift, donation or charitable donation...
. In Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
they are often called squeegee punks, in reference to their appearance, or simply squeegees. In 1999 the Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
government passed the Safe Streets Act
Safe Streets Act
The Safe Streets Act, 1999 is a law in the province of Ontario, Canada. In 2004 the province of British Columbia passed its own version of the Safe Streets Act , substantially a word-for-word copy of the Ontario version. The SSA prohibits aggressive solicitation of persons in certain public places...
, outlawing squeegee kids and aggressive public begging. Squeegee kids have become scarce on Toronto and Vancouver curbsides, as police frequently stop them and check their identities for outstanding arrest warrants.
In 2011, Deputy Mayor of Toronto Doug Holyday
Doug Holyday
Doug Holyday is a city councillor in Toronto, Canada, who represents Ward 3 which is part of Etobicoke Centre, He is also Deputy Mayor of Toronto.Holyday has lived his entire life in Etobicoke, and was a successful businessman before entering political life....
told the Toronto Sun
Toronto Sun
The Toronto Sun is an English-language daily tabloid newspaper published in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is known for its daily Sunshine Girl feature and for what it sees as a populist conservative editorial stance.-History:...
that there was the will in council to step up action against panhandlers, including squeegee kids; the proposition was mocked by some media, given the previous efforts, and the suggestion that the homeless would have to pay fines. A few days later, on June 7, a man was attacked with a squeegee by a 23-year-old at Queen Street and Spadina Avenue
Spadina Avenue
Spadina Avenue is one of the most prominent streets in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Running through the western section of downtown, the road has a very different character in different neighbourhoods....
. The alleged attacker was charged, and the driver admitted to hospital, to deal with the gash.
London
LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
ers, and perhaps others, extend the appellation to include those who roam in the midst of stopped traffic to not only wash windscreens, but also hawk items such as roses and newspapers. For this reason, they are sometimes called squeegee merchants.
New York City
While squeegee men are a feature of life in many cities around the world, the phenomenon first became prevalent in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in the 1980s. The usual procedure would involve groups of squeegee men surrounding cars stopped in traffic. Although some merely provided a service, in other cases the windshield-washing would be carried out without asking, often perfunctorily, and with subsequent demands for payment, sometimes with added threats of smashing the car's windshield if their demands were not met. Upon his election, mayor Rudy Giuliani
Rudy Giuliani
Rudolph William Louis "Rudy" Giuliani KBE is an American lawyer, businessman, and politician from New York. He served as Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001....
famously embarked on a crusade against squeegee men as part of his quality-of-life campaign, claiming that their near-ubiquitous presence created an environment of disorder that encouraged more serious crime to flourish. Squeegee men disappeared from city streets during Giuliani's mayoralty and have yet to reappear in significant numbers. (In his book Leadership, Giuliani explained that his method of removing the squeegee men from the street involved arresting them. Patrolmen who first made the arrests saw that the squeegee men were released immediately, because according to the New York penal code at the time, cleaning someone's windshield was not illegal. Giuliani told the officers that if they saw any more squeegee men they should simply arrest them for jaywalking
Jaywalking
Jaywalking is an informal term commonly used in North America to refer to illegal or reckless pedestrian crossing of a roadway. Examples include a pedestrian crossing between intersections without yielding to drivers and starting to cross a crosswalk at a signalized intersection without waiting...
.)