This could be one of the more innovative ways to send a political message. Pay someone to drive away your clientele.

Being able to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt may be difficult. Enough bread crumbs have been spread along the way to make that theory plausible.

Steve Hildebrand who owns Josiah's Coffeehouse & Cafe in Downtown Sioux Falls is part of an effort to circulate petitions that would initiate a measure that would place restrictions on payday lenders in South Dakota. Recently, transients have been coming to his café because a missionary offered to buy them food.

Sometimes those homeless people would come by the dozens. Customer capacity Josiah’s would be stretched to say the least.

Steve Hildebrand tells KDLT News that he has had to contact police several times after dozens of people showed up at his business. He says many of these people are either homeless or transients and are being sent there by the payday loan industry.

According to Jonathan Ellis of the Argus Leader, police confronted one of the missionaries on Tuesday, a man dubbed Pastor Pete. The man’s his real name is Floyd Pickett, from Peoria, Illinois.

Hildebrand also produced a news story showing that Pickett and Rod Aycox are business associates. Rod Aycox is the CEO of North American Title Loans who would be on the opposite side of Hildebrand’s initiative.

Petitions are currently circulating for the initiated measure that would set a maximum finance charge for certain licensed money lenders such as title loan companies and payday lenders. Supporters need to submit almost 14,000 valid signatures by the first week in November to qualify for the 2016 general election ballot.

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