So here we have a “realistic” (although silly) detective show Monk where he gets arrested in a San Francisco (outdoor) shopping mall for taking pennies from the fountain.
Any logic to that?
I sort of see a scale here, where at one end it’s nobody’s money. This is what I’m guessing is the normal case.
At the other end would be somebody’s money. Take a less public area and have a wishing well with a sign indicating donations go to something or other.
Or would that also be up for grabs, as long as it contained donations and not entry fees, etc.
I don’t have a cite, but I believe I have read about someone being charged with theft for taking money from a fountain. There was a sign at the fountain that the money was donated to a local charity.
If there’s a sign saying that the money goes to a charity, then it’s not hard viewing throwing money in as a gift to the charity, in which case taking money out is stealing from the charity.
On the other hand, if there’s no sign, then I would view people throwing money in as having abandoned possession, and think that the money belongs to no one. In thisd case, if I throw my money in, then a minute later come back and take it back, that’s not stealing, because there’s no evidence that I gave it away, just that I abandoned it then later changed my mind.
In an analogous situation, if I throw money away into the sea, I have abandoned it, and no one has ownership, because no one owns the sea. So if a diver recovers the money, there’s no theft. Does abandoning money on someone’s property change that, so that the property owner has some claim? In that case, if I find a coin on the ground in a shopping mall, and don’t know who accidentally dropposed it there, I should hand it in to the shopping mall.
The money belongs to whoever owns the fountain. These days most fountains are in shopping centres, so the money belongs to the company that owns the mall.
I took coins out of the local mall fountains once so I could pay for Chinese food. I’m not sure if it is donated to charity or if the mall keeps it or what. Hey I was hungry.
You have sharp eyes, and it was indeed his assistant who got stuck with pulling out the odd 3c because he won’t get his hands dirty. But in the next scene at the station he says both of them got arrested.
There’s a public park nearby that has a wishing well and a sign that money goes to the park’s non-profit fund. But they still put a locked grate at the bottom to keep kids and beggars out.
That sounds more right. I didn’t see this episode but the idea that Adrian would actually not only wade into a fountain but pick up money that some total stranger had in their pocket and hand didn’t scan to me at all…
Yes, but he was the one who was upset over the extra 3¢ in the fountain (There was $10.03, and who else would have stood there and counted it?), and she removed the extra 3¢ just to placate him.
Charity is a state of mind. Maybe if one is in a charitable state, they toss in the coins, they make their wishes or whatever and release the monetary value of the coins.
Charity is also a state of mind where one who sees that the coins have no master, is hungry and claims the coins for nourishment, is thankful to the giver of the coins.
But for pity’s sake, go BACK to the fountain and release the change back from your Subways “Thank God It’s Tuesday” deal and allow some other poor slob his meal. :smack:
Of course, if the fountain happens to be on government property, Uncle Sam gets the second “Thank God It’s Tuesday” sammich.
You don’t throw as many because you are tired of seeing punk 16-20 year olds stealing them and snearing at the people around with the "You cannot do a damn thing to me. " look on their faces.
I think very, very few establishments would bother to have you arrested unless it was a large scale two-day thing. . It would be next to impossible to prove that you were stealing as opposed to, say, fishing out coins that fell from your pocket. At the most you could expect to be banned from the establishment.
