It’s not a knock at the homeless, Thiel told the Journal in a telephone interview. The problem is when people go beyond simply asking for money politely.

“We have had people followed and walked up to very quickly,” Thiel said. “People present themselves and will not take a simple no for an answer. People feel they (the panhandlers) are getting very close to them sometimes. There are threats, or just popping up out of nowhere. People are aggressively pursuing on many occasions.”

Thiel said the problem is one talked about and shared among “stakeholders from all parts of downtown,” and isn’t simply a response to Finch’s email.

“We want people to think downtown is a welcome place and that everyone is welcome,” Thiel said. “But everyone who is coming should be able to come without getting aggressively panhandled.”

In his email, Finch tells how he recently heard a business client he met at a downtown business telling his wife to use Uber to get a ride down several blocks of Fourth Street after he had been “aggressively accosted” by two men.

Sgt. Kevin Bowers of the Downtown Bike Patrol said that in the incident Finch recounts, no one apparently called the police.