Squeegee man

Squeegee kids have become scarce in Toronto, Ontario and Vancouver, BC, as police frequently stop them and check their identities for outstanding arrest warrants.

[9][10] Londoners, and perhaps others, extend the appellation to include those who roam in the midst of stopped traffic to not only wash windscreens, but also hawk items such as roses and newspapers.

[citation needed] In New York City in the 1980s, the usual procedure would involve groups of squeegee men surrounding cars stopped in traffic.

Although some merely provided a service, in other cases the windshield-washing would be carried out without asking, often perfunctorily, and with subsequent demands for money, sometimes with added threats of smashing the car's windshield.

Upon his election, mayor Rudy Giuliani famously sought to remove squeegee men from the streets[11] as part of his quality-of-life campaign, claiming that their near-ubiquitous presence created an environment of disorder that encouraged more serious crime to flourish.