There's a long tradition of people protesting fines they think are wrong by paying them in the most inconvenient way possible. This college kid who paid his parking tickets with 11,000 pennies is a good example.
But when the mayor of Hialeah, Fla. showed up last month to pay a $4,000 ethics fine for complaints he (somewhat ironically) called a "political circus" with 28 buckets of pennies and nickels, it didn't go down the way he expected, according to the Miami Herald.
First of all, the ethics commission, which requires a check, did not accept the 360,000 coins. Then they doubled his fine due to the stunt, during which he brought along several TV news crews.
Now the commission is also suing him in small claims court. The suit, filed in County Court this week, will address Mayor Carlos Hernandez's "non compliance."
“They can go to court if they want, but they are going to have to show why a public entity does not accept this country’s money," Hernandez told the Herald after the incident.
Maybe he should have just saved those pennies for a mortgage payment. Making a stand for what you believe is right is cool and all, but it probably would have just been some low-paid, entry-level dude who had nothing to do with anything who got stuck rolling pennies for the next three weeks anyway.
