Sanitation ‘blitz’ on Ridge block

March 17, 2007

By Matthew Lysiak
The Brooklyn Paper

Residents of 73rd Street between Fourth and Fifth avenues returned home from work on Monday to discover litter summonses greeting them at the door — the latest example, some say, of an ongoing ticket blitz in Bay Ridge.

“At least seven people on the block received $25 tickets,” said resident Janice Schiavo. “I am not going to pay this ticket because that would be an admission of guilt, and I am not guilty.”

The trouble began when Schiavo was leaving to work on Monday morning and noticed a Sanitation officer going through her neighbor’s trash.

“I didn’t really didn’t think much of it,’ said Schiavo. “I was late.”

Too bad she didn’t stick around a little longer, because later in the day, she returned to discover that the agent had slapped her house with a summons.

The violation on the ticket claims that she “used an improper container to store her recyclables,” which irked Schiavo, because she didn’t use a container, instead placing her recyclables out in a clear plastic bag.

“I started to talk with other people on my block, and everyone I spoke with received the same ticket and we didn’t use containers,” said Schiavo, who described herself as a “radical environmentalist from the ’60s” and, as such, vowed to fight the ticket.

The 73rd Street snafu comes after green warrior Theresa Maresco received two $100 citations for pieces of paper that were blown into her yard when she was not there, and another story about a woman who received a ticket for a dirty driveway — even though she doesn’t have a driveway!

One local official discovered a little-known tool that Schiavo and others can use in their defense against the Sanitation Department.

“If you call the number on the back of the ticket to request a hearing, you can also request the presence of the officer who wrote the ticket,” said Eric Kuo, a spokesman for Councilman Vince Gentile (D–Bay Ridge).

“If you get a ticket and you feel it was unfair, schedule the hearing, request the officer to appear, tell your side of the story, and there is a good chance that they will throw out the ticket,” Kuo said.

There is also a good chance that the inspector, busy with other things, won’t show, others said.

A Sanitation spokesman would not discuss the specific violation against Schiavo, but insisted that “ticket blitzes” are a myth.

“I know the agency doesn’t ‘ticket blitz,’” agency spokesman Matthew LiPani said. “It is unlikely that the entire block got a ticket.”

LiPani also said that Schiavo’s specific violation could have been for a number of reasons.

“It could be that there was household waste that she wasn’t aware of,” he said.