A man barged into a Denver business looking for free food while the owner was being interviewed by a news crew about the drop in sales over the homeless crisis.
The bizarre incident was included in a report from KMGH-TV that included other interviews with business owners who were frustrated by the garbage and crime driving away customers from their businesses.
Melanie Flint, the owner of Cheese Meat Board, appeared bewildered as she addressed the man.
“What can we do for you?” she asked.
“I was just gonna grab a sample, sorry,” the man replied.
“We have sandwiches,” Flint responded.
“I don’t know, I was just gonna grab a sample,” he repeated.
“We don’t have samples,” she reiterated.
The man abruptly grabbed a waffle cookie from the store counter and claimed it as a sample.
“No, those cost money,” a staff member says off-camera.
“They’re samples,” he argued. “That’s what those are.”
“No, no,” Flint said, laughing nervously.
“This costs money?” the man says angrily. “$0.25 cents. Get out of my way.”
The man then tossed the front door open and stomped away.
“That is it,” Flint said. “Fortunately, we don’t see that non-stop, but we see it enough that it’s a little discouraging.”
The report included interviews with owners of the British Bulldog bar and The Triangle Bar, a decades-old gay bar. They all reported that sales were down about 40% over the homeless encampments that had engulfed their block.
“This corner smells like fetid urine in the morning,” said Scott Coors, the owner of The Triangle Bar. “It’s fairly off-putting. Would you like to park here and walk through that? I wouldn’t. To be honest, I wouldn’t.”
The mayor’s office said the city was expanding services to homeless encampments that included trash pickup and bathroom access. It also touted the fact that 26 homeless people were going to be moved into housing.
The video of the bizarre interview can be seen at the YouTube channel for KMGH-TV.
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