This spunky little girl aims to do what cops, politicians and civic leaders can’t seem to: Tame the surly Elmos, Mickeys and Batmans of Times Square.
“Hugs should not cost money!” insists Kamila Filshtinskiy, a Brooklyn first-grader who is furious over the costumed pests’ much-publicized aggressive tip-grubbing.
Kamila, 6, is on a crowd-sourced mission to teach Elmo and his cranky kin better manners — or run them out of the world’s crossroads altogether.
She has launched a campaign on the Indiegogo fundraising website to raise cash for her own costumes, so she and her young friends can infiltrate Times Square and show by example how all hugs should be free.
“I hope that when other people see us doing this, they will also want to do this,” she says in her Indiegogo pitch, titled “Get Greedy Elmo & Others OUT of Times Square!”
“Then the mean people in costumes will leave, and only nice people will stay. And then children and their parents will be happy.”
Dad Mikhail says Kamila came up with the idea while sitting in the Times Square Applebee’s and watching Mickey and Minnie shake down tourists for tips.
“Daddy,” he recalls her asking, “can you please change the world? Can you make it so Elmo doesn’t charge kids to take pictures with him?”
Since Nov. 22, Kamila has raised $285 of her $20,000 goal.
But unlike the Times Square scourges — who have been arrested for aggressive panhandling, assault and even groping in recent months — Kamila’s request for cash is as sweet and low-pressure as Hello Kitty.
The City Council has been looking to rein in the beggars, too, and is considering a bill to require them to undergo background checks and register with the city. A vote on the proposal has not been scheduled.
But Kamila’s effort aims higher.
“I want to make children happy,” she says in a video explaining her campaign. “The other characters in Times Square ask for money, and they make people sad if they don’t have money.
“When children see Elmo, Minnie and princesses, they want to hug them, tell them that they love them and take pictures with them,” she says in this video:
“But they [the characters] tell parents to give them a lot of money, and if children or their parents don’t, they become mean and don’t want to take pictures.
“It makes me sad, and it makes other children sad. Princesses and superheroes should not make children feel sad!”