Thursday, July 15, 2010

The State Owns the Trash and Don't You Touch It

...If you do, we'll fine you, and for good measure, we'll impound your damn car.

CBS New York reports:

"As far as I knew it was a piece of garbage sitting on the curb," Paul Lawrence said.

But what Lawrence didn't know when he decided to pick up a discarded air conditioner sitting on the sidewalk in Middle Village, Queens is that once trash hits the curb, it's technically city property.

And he was breaking the law.

"There was a lady here. I asked the lady can I take the air conditioner. She said go ahead take it. It's garbage," Lawrence said.

But not only was he fined $2,000 by a sanitation officer who watched him do it, the car he was driving was impounded.

And its owner -- Lawrence's Aunt, 73-year-old Margaret Colavita, was also slapped with a $2,000 fine. "I said what is this and she said well we have to serve you with this. You're the owner of the car and it says I gave him permission," Colavita said.
Remember, insider Philippa Malmgren has warned the stealth taxes are coming.

1 comment:

  1. What the hell is wrong with people working for entities these days? No slack is given, no common sense, no discretion. At least in the third world one can bribe your way out of such situations with a few bucks.

    My old pickup died while in line at the local dump last month. I called my wife to pick me up so I could get back to town and buy a $40 electric fuel pump and install it in about 5 minutes. After pushing the truck off to the side I went to the pay booth to inform the woman inside what happened and how I'll be back in a few minutes to resolve my predicament. She went ballistic on me claiming my being on the scale had overcharged the last customer ($10/ton mind you) and that I could not leave my dead vehicle for any amount of time because it was a 'security' issue. She threatened to call the police and tow company if I left and demanded my license. It really took some effort calming her down and I had to point out this is a freakin' garbage dump with hundreds of acres of empty barren land all around her booth and that I was well out of the way. It wasn' as if she was manning a checkpoint in Iraq and I could be a suicide bomber ready to explode the county dump. Her last effort was trying to convince me somebody could steal my vehicle - a rusting 30 year old trash hauler truck that gets driven maybe twice a year. I hope so was my reply. She eventually relented, but not without telling me it was against policy, trespassing and that if her boss found out she would lose her job.

    Now I see why they call themselves sanitation 'officials' instead of worker or engineer. Might as well give them badges and tasers because that's where we're heading.

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