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Angelenos have been in a frenzy, doing some crazy stuff in search of Hidden Cash money, from running into oncoming traffic to the most recent SMH moment: tearing up a Whittier park. The dude behind the cash is now reimbursing $5,000 to the city of Whittier to pay the park's repairs.
And no, this money will not be hidden, it will be sent by check.
In a statement Jason Buzi—the Hidden Cash benefactor whose identity is no longer a secret—issued on Twitter on Tuesday afternoon, he admitted that depositing money at the tiny Willam Penn Park in Whittier at night in the dark "was probably not the smartest idea." A swarm of folks (an estimated 500 to 1,000) had turned up on Thursday night to fervently turn ever stone over to look for Pez dispensers and lunch boxes filled with dough in the amount of $40 to $100.
"A large crowd turned out, and things got rowdy," he wrote. "Young men yelled obscenities on live TV. Sprinklers were broken, plants were trampled, fences were mangled."
The damages amounted to $5,000 and although Buzi and his followers volunteered to help clean up the park, the city told him they didn't want any volunteers. (They've done enough already, haven't they?)
"We're glad to put this behind us," Whittier City Manager Jeff Collier told KPCC. "And we appreciate Mr. Buzi stepping up and taking responsibility."
However, Collier also said they city of Whittier wouldn't rather not welcome Hidden Cash back any time soon.
Buzi, who's expanded his cash drop-offs to around the world, wrote that he intended to do seven deposits in L.A. over four days—and it probably should've been planned better (since traffic backed up the streets during that Whittier search). He said that he's always encouraged everyone to share their findings with one another. Oh, and he also gave East L.A. a shoutout of sorts:
Not knowing LA county well, and feeling the time pressure to do so many drops in a short amount of time was not a good combination. Going forward, we will learn from this. As the crowds are big, event locations need to be selected even more carefully than we have so far, perhaps in consultation with local authorities. Night time events have a different energy, and as fun as they can be, we may suspend those for now. Other events all went very well, including those in "poor" parts of town, like East L.A.
