Photo: Colin Dacre

When bylaw officers approached panhandler Paul Braun on Main Street and let him know that the city would be holding a photo opportunity with a new kindness meter, Braun told the officers that's just fine. He's not moving.

Penticton city council approved a kindness meter to be installed near the breezeway on the 200 block of Main Street, with the official install and photo op to be held on Thursday at noon.

The bylaw officers stopped by at around noon on Wednesday and gave him the heads up on the event, but Braun inferred another message from the conversation.

"Maybe I shouldn't be here. Or if I don't want to be seen, don't be here," Braun said. Asked whether he thought the city would want him to be at the spot during the event, Braun replied, "I don't care."

But as he has for months, Braun says he has no plans to be anywhere but perched at his spot during Thursday's event.

"I said, 'I'm not moving,'" Braun said of the interaction with the bylaw officers. "I said, 'My only question is when you come around handing out tickets, are you writing yourself one, too?'" he added, pointing to the kindness meter.

"Why would they give me a ticket when they're doing the same damn thing?"

Braun says he's been in that spot panhandling for two-and-a-half years, so he won't be moving for the kindness meter, which is intended to discourage panhandling.

"I worked in this town for 40 years. If I can't sit in this spot and try to make a sandwich, or some supper money, there's really something wrong with our society," Braun said.

During the winter months, Braun says he doesn't get trouble from bylaw officers, but on a yearly basis, come tourism season, the tickets start rolling in.

"Last year in May, they came down and gave me four all at once," he said. "Every time they come around, they take a picture of you, and the picture has a time and date stamp, so they call it four different occasions. All winter long, they left me alone, but come May when the tourists are about to arrive, they want out of sight, out of mind."

As passersby greet Braun with a smile, he points out that he's become a bit of a fixture. He regularly gets help from several of the stores downtown, including a portable DVD player from one of the shop owners, cheap DVD rentals from another shop and food from others.

"All of these businesses, I don't think one of them will complain. And everybody I asked yesterday about that meter, they all think it's a stupid idea," he said. "The mayor's wife once in a while brings over a can of soup. I don't know if it belongs to the mayor or not."