A homeless man who had a bucket of water dumped on him outside a Tim Hortons in Vancouver last week says he’s touched so many people care about what happened.
Grant Faithful says he was sleeping with his dog and another homeless man outside a downtown Tim Hortons last Sunday when the store's owner came out and poured a bucket of water around them and their belongings, apparently in an effort to get them to move.
Faithful says he wasn’t panhandling or harassing anyone when it happened.
Witnesses to the incident were outraged, and the story went viral on social media. One post calling for customers to boycott the store generated thousands of shares on Twitter and Facebook.
Faithful says he has yet to receive a personal apology from the company, but he says the response from the public alone has meant a lot to him.
“It’s a step in the right direction, that’s for sure,” told CTV Vancouver on Monday. “It’s good to know that people actually do pay attention to this stuff. They care.”
Tim Hortons issued a statement over the weekend apologizing for the owner’s actions.
“The regretful actions in a moment of frustration at one of our Vancouver locations is not at all reflective of our brand,” it said.
The company said the owner would also make a “meaningful donation” to Belkin House, a local shelter run by the Salvation Army.
For his part, Faithful says he hopes a similar incident doesn't happen to other homeless people.
“Unfortunately, we have to sleep outside, we have to deal with a lot of stuff and that is just one of the everyday things that we go through,” he said.
