> It's probably not illegal to take money from a public fountain. Mall fountains might be a little different...I think you can get in trouble there, because the mall owns the fountain and therefore they own what is in the fountain.
>

Well, like some people have said before, it really depends on the fountain. My 16 cents were out of the mall fountain, but no one ever comes to clean it, and if they did, the mall owners would get the money. I could probably argue that since I immediately used the 16 cents to buy a $120 product, the store got more money from that than if I didn't get the 16 cents and couldn't buy the $120 product. (actually it was $128.40 due to GST, and I had $128.24) I'm also quite certain that it would cost the mall owners more to empty the fountain then thy would get becasue there were pretty much nothing but pennies and the cleaning people would have to sweep around all the lights inside the pool, not to mention under the little bridge. That might be the reason why they killed the cool little fountain and replaced it with a stage where nothing happens.

> To me, it's not an issue whether it's legal or not. I would ask, is it polite to take money from a public fountain? If I had just tossed in a coin and made a wish...or say if my child had done so...and then I saw someone come up and start grabbing coins, I would probably think that person was very rude. Sure, the wish thing is just a nice tradition, but to a kid, it's real. To a kid, you are stealing. You're stealing wishes.

> Gri"so you probably ought to sneak out and do it at night when no one is looking"shny
>

Polite? No. It's generally frowned upon to take money from any public place, even if no one really cares about the money. If you're still going to take some of the coins from the fountain, night might not be that bad of an idea, or at least a time when there aren't any people in the area, especially children, for the reason you pointed out. I can imagine how some parents would react if their children threw in a quarter only to see it being taken back out immediatly thereafter by someone they didn't know!

-Ka"I got some odd stares while fishing out pennies...."z!