On Saturday, Broadway had more litter than it did on a weekday.
By Nancy Peckenham
The snow is finally melting on the streets of the town and city of Newburgh, a welcomed moment, yet one that reveals piles of trash and debris from the winter storms.
In the city of Newburgh, building inspector Steve Hunter said that piles of snow this winter contributed to a problem of property owners not cleaning up their sidewalks and gutters. Compounding the problems was the fact that because of the snow, the city’s street sweepers couldn’t get close enough to the curb to do much trash removal, he said.
Code Enforcers Visit City Business Owners
When complaints about the conditions in the Broadway business district reached his ears recently, Hunter sent code enforcers to local business owners with flyers reminding them of the city code that requires property owners to clean the sidewalks as well as 18 inches into the street in front of their properties.
City of Newburgh Fire Chief Michael Vatter told the city council last week that at least one of the code enforcers had a bad reaction from a business owner. “He was ripped to shreds by a Broadway store owner when he asked him to sweep the street,” Vatter said. Building inspector Hunter said that his code enforcers are accustomed to getting negative reactions, noting that sometimes the reaction comes from people who pay their taxes and believe that the city should do more to clean up.
This week, a random check of Broadway businesses showed the sidewalks more littered during the weekend than during the week. On Wednesday, a day of rain had flattened some papers onto the sidewalk, with small piles of debris off the curbs but the trash cans not piled high as they were on the weekend.
Business Owners Say They Try to Clean Up
On Broadway between Robinson Avenue and Mill St., 82-year-old Jimmy Vlachos, who has owned Jimmy’s Restaurant for 36 years, said that he and his wife do the best they can to keep the front sidewalk clean. His wife, Dimitra, says she sweeps daily. “But then the wind blows trash from the guy next door and you have it again in five minutes,” Jimmy said.
The sidewalk outside Jimmy's and the Jalapeno restaurant was relatively clean after Wednesday's rainstorm.
Next door, Humberto Herrera says that he sweeps outside his restaurant, Japlapeno, every three days but that people dump garbage in the city-owned trash cans that overflow onto the sidewalk. Herrera says that he has not yet been visited by a city code enforcer but thinks they can have an impact.
Ordinance Requires Stores to Remove Window Signs
Further east, at the corner of S. Miller Street, store owner Mike Ali has run into another city ordinance designed to improve the appearance of the business district. In October, city council passed a new ordinance that store windows cannot have more than 25 percent of their windows covered by posters. Ali said that his landlord told him this week that he would have to take down some of the advertisements on the windows of his Broadway Market. Several posters are gone, but the view inside is still partially obscured by a peg board.
Broadway Market last Saturday, before the window signs were removed.
After the signs were removed, store owner Ali said he still had to scrape off the glue.
City police chief Michael Ferrara told the city council last week that uncovering the windows will improve the safety of storeowners and could prevent illegal activity from occurring inside. Ali said that although he complied with the order he doesn’t think there is any benefit and that, in fact, the covered windows could protect the cash register from public view. “I know we have the law, so we have to do it,” he said.
While store owners insist that they comply with the city maintenance codes, fire chief Vatter says that it can be difficult to get results. “Code enforcers are getting sworn at in every language and dialect on Broadway when it would not take the five minutes to clean up,” he said. “It is frustrating and disheartening to try to get compliance without dragging people into court – that will be the next step.”
Loading...
