Residents of a Florida community are outraged over the firing of an elderly toll taker who has worked the causeway to their island for years.

FOX News Radio’s Eben Brown reports from Miami:

Boca Grande on Florida’s west coast is a quaint island town. One of the pleasures was the toll taker on the causeway. They called him Sam.

(Resident) ”He’d always give dog bones to the dogs, and you know, say hi to them, and ask how our daughter was doing.”

Full name: Vladislav Samsonov. He often got scolded by his bosses for paying people’s toll if they were short. This time they fired the 77-year-old, to the outrage of everybody else.

(Resident) “Especially for what it was. I mean, that just doesn’t seem right to me at all.”

Sam’s not sure if he wants his job back.

(Sam) ”It makes me want to also cry, but bite the tongue and you’ll be okay.”

In Miami, Eben Brown, FOX News Radio.