A violent vagrant with a string of Big Apple assault busts on his rap sheet is finally behind bars after cops said he slashed a clerk at a Brooklyn discount store with a machete and tried to set him on fire.
All because he couldn’t afford a stick of gum.
Joaquin Hidalgo, 35, couldn’t come up with the cash for the gum at the Brooklyn Two 99-cent store in Bushwick on Monday, so he pulled out a machete, threatened workers, slashed one and doused him in lighter fluid before setting a flag outside on fire as he fled, according to police and prosecutors.
When cops caught up with Hidalgo — who was on the streets despite open cases in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Staten Island — the vagrant was finally ordered held on bail…