THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 23, 1995 TAG: 9504210023
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines
I don't know what part of Norfolk Patricia Gallop and Gerald Santasiere live in (``Penalized by Norfolk,'' letters, April 11), but I wish I lived there.
Where I live some of the trash cans are put out on Monday, trash is picked up on Tuesday, and today, Saturday, two of the cans are still out on the street turned over on their side.
Residents on one side of me put eight to 10 bags of yard waste out, which everybody knows is supposed to be in clear bags. They were not. The pick-up trucks passed by the bags for four weeks, finally putting a tag on them saying why they were refusing to pick them up.
These same bags, even after they were tagged, stayed on the street for three more weeks. Somebody finally moved them.
Residents on the other side put trash out not in clear bags; they, too, stayed for a week until a ticket was put on them. After another week or two, they were moved.
Last week, on Tuesday, that same resident put yard waste out again in the wrong bags - this time it was picked up the same day. No problem! So why did all the other bags get left for approximately two months without anyone being fined - and trash cans left on the street for days?
Maybe whoever checks the streets could spend a little time on this one.
DOROTHY LEWIS
Norfolk, April 14, 1995
Regarding the letters from Patricia Gibbs Gallop and Gerald Santasiere concerning the Norfolk law of it being a punishable offense to leave trash bins out overnight:
I understand that a similar law exists in Virginia Beach. What is the basis for such a law? Is it because the trash bins are unsightly and are likely to upset our dreams while we are asleep in bed?
Maybe it is to prevent the overnight trash thieves from rifling through other peoples' trash under the cover of darkness.
A more unsightly situation, in my opinion, is created by the householder putting out the trash bin (cost to the householder, $75) as directed in the morning, leaving for work and returning in the evening to find the $75 trash bin lying on its side or upside down after having been emptied by a city worker who (wanting to get his work finished as soon as possible) doesn't care how he leaves it. This also applies to bins that are manually handled (not mechanically).
Who instigated this law anyway, and why?
RONALD G. WILSON
Virginia Beach, April 11, 1995 by CNB