The $39 was just a cash collection jar. I think what's getting him into hot water is that he advertised 5% of his sales for a time period would be donated to the family. It comes out to about $2k by his estimate. I'm guessing the family is not so concerned about the money, but more mortified that a local business may have used their daughter's death to bring in customers without contacting them and then held onto the money anyway. I don't know him or them and am hoping it's all a misunderstanding because it really is pretty sketchy sounding. My advice to any small business owner is even if you intend to follow through with donations, it's really, really unwise to latch onto someone's tragedy like that. Very ethically sketchy, even if your intentions are good. I would never do something like this without reaching out to the family first.

Edit: also something I hadn't realized until just now when I read his original facebook post promoting donations and the subsequent letter from their attorney, but he implicitly encouraged people to not donate to their gofundme because it charges fees, but to give him money instead to give to them. So I can see why they're upset at the whole thing.