Avi Sami, owner of a shoe store in Tel Aviv, desperately decided to close the business and distribute the shoes he had left to passers-by. • According to Tel Aviv municipal inspectors, he "threw garbage
Passers-by storm the shoes outside Sami's store
Photography:
Joshua Joseph
Avi Sami, who owns a shoe store in Tel Aviv, decided to distribute free shoes to passers-by on the street after despairing of his financial situation, and ended up saying to close the business. Ironically, Tel Aviv Municipality inspectors fined him for dumping waste in public space.
Sami decided to distribute all the shoes in his store, after initially trying to donate the shoes to various charities that would donate them to the needy.
But they demanded that he pay for the delivery to them, so he decided to distribute the shoes for free - because he wanted to vacate his store and close it.
He took the shoes out into the street and began handing them out to enthusiastic passers-by.
However, inspectors from the Tel Aviv municipality arrived at the scene and wrote a report on the dumping of waste in the public space.
In the near future we will probably see more and more of this.
Avi Sami, 36, married and a father of three from Holon, distributes the goods to passers-by.
According to him, his financial, mental and physical condition make it difficult for him to survive.
Aid programs are a drop in the ocean.
"I'll give the keys, I'll look for a job like everyone else and I'll be one of a million unemployed," he tells me in a sad conversation
- Bar Peleg (@bar_peleg) October 12, 2020
The Tel Aviv Municipality responded: "An inspector who passed by the place after the incident and did not know about his circumstances, identified piles of garbage at the place and wrote him a report on dumping waste in the public space.
The store owner did not update the inspector on what was happening, and even apologized for throwing the cartons into the street.
We invite the store owner to submit a request to cancel the report and it will be considered. We have no interest in the funds' reports - only in keeping the law.
