A Lawrence man had an encounter with one nasty fast-food cup earlier this month as he drove down Tennessee Street.

Pieces of cardboard, fast food drink cups and plastic coffee can lids peppered with sheet metal screws pointing upward have recently been placed on Lawrence streets by vandals. This cup, placed on Monterey Way to show the paper cup in relationship to oncoming traffic, originally held 15 screws.

On Aug. 8, John Kriss was driving his Ford pickup south on Tennessee between Eighth and Ninth streets when he ran over a flattened McDonald’s cup. He heard a loud noise, pulled over, and saw that someone had poked about a dozen 2-inch drywall screws through the bottom of the cup so that they pointed skyward as the cup lay in the street.

“The tire didn’t go flat because the screws were in it,” said Kriss, 48, an attorney and social worker.

Kriss walked to D&D Tire Inc. at 10th and Vermont streets, where employees told him the tire couldn’t be patched because of the extensive damage.

A manager at the store, Jim — who declined to give his last name — said in an interview he’d seen at least three other similar cups stuck in tires in the past three weeks in addition to the one that ruined Kriss’ tire.

Employees at seven other local tire shops said they hadn’t seen any similar cases recently.

Data about the number of such cases reported in recent weeks to Lawrence Police wasn’t available Wednesday.