City Council Wants to Register Your Garbage Can....

Illegally saving spots with garbage cans, like this scene on 159th Avenue in Howard Beach, has sparked debate among residents.

With parking a precious commodity throughout the city, it has become customary for residents in some neighborhoods to save parking spots in front of or near their houses with traffic cones or garbage cans.

Apparently the practice of "saving" parking spots among our neighbors in Howard Beach and Ozone Park has ruffled the feathers of some of the local citizenry and the Police are now distributing fliers advising residents that removing parking spaces on public streets is illegal and the city can issue a summons for the practice.

“It shall be unlawful for any person to reserve or attempt to reserve a parking space, or prevent any vehicle from parking on a public street through his/her presence in the roadway, the use of hand-signals, or by placing any box, can, garbage can, crate, hand-cart, dolly, cones or any other device, including unauthorized pavement, curb or street markings or signs in the roadway.”

Now there is a bill in the City Council that aims to mitigate the issue. Introduced by Council Members Elizabeth Crowley (D-Middle Village) and Letitia James (D-Brooklyn), the proposed law would allow the city to remove garbage cans—the most common method to save spots—left on public streets.

I would love to know who would be charged with the task of removing garbage cans from the street in front of our houses.  I know the local police will not be using the trunks of their RMP's to take away the offending cans to store them at the local precinct!   What will the Sanitation workers do...empty the can into their hoppers and then throw the offending can in after the trash? 

Wait...it gtets better!

Councilwoman Crowley is also looking at different ways to "register garbage cans" so there is greater accountability to ticket individuals saving spots.

I know what you are thinking..."register"  garbage cans? I know that sounds borderline insane (even if it is a idea coming from a politician), but anytime I hear a politician start talking about registering anything the first question that pops into my mind is "what is this going to cost me?"

Back in July of 2010 we posted an article entitled "A new garbage tax and other things to worry about?" regarding the city thinking about charging a fee for residential garbage based on the amount of trash being discarded.  The city was looking at the possibility of emplacing RFID chips in our garbage cans (effectively registering them?) to determine how much trash an individual property owner was disposing of.

If this is how our elected officials spend their time we would be better off having our local council representative stand in front of our houses to save our parking spaces...at least we would be getting some bang for our tax bucks!  

File this under "You've got to be kidding me!"