Community Board 1 Meets with DSNY to Address Shabbos Ticketing Concerns

By Idy Perl

On Thursday, Community Board 1 members Shimon Wieser, the 1st Vice Chair, and Joel Goldstein, had a meeting with various officials from the DSNY, including Lloyd Feng, Public Safety & Human Services Committee Chair, Gbubemi Okotieuro, Assistant Commissioner of Intergovernmental Affairs at DSNY, Brooklyn North sanitation representatives, and sanitation police enforcement officials.

At the meeting they discussed several issues the community is having with the sanitation department, especially with some of the latest guidelines regarding garbage disposal and street cleaning.

Wieser brought up the scheduling conflicts between the garbage trucks and the pick-up hours of local Jewish schools. Wieser asked for the DSNY to accommodate the schedule of the schools and have the trucks finish by 8am so the streets shouldn’t be clogged with traffic.

Another major issue that was brought up at the meeting was local residents receiving tickets on Shabbos for not cleaning garbage in front of their property. The local law is that residents have to clean the sidewalk and 18 inches into the road in front of their property, as well as catch basins when applicable, and it has to be clean by 8am and 6pm every day or they risk getting fined. On Shabbos though, the garbage is often there from after the zman and the residents therefore don’t have a chance to clean it before they get ticketed. In some cases, residents have video footage of sanitation workers being careless with garbage and causing the mess on the property. In addition, commercial spaces have been receiving tickets as well since according to the law they’re supposed to put their garbage out after 6 or 8pm, but don’t have a chance to do so when their stores close early on Friday.

In response, the DSNY assured the Community Board that their workers and enforcement officers are educated on the needs of the community and are trained to use discretion when issuing tickets. Sometimes, due to staffing limitations, the workers get shifted around and an employee without a proper understanding of the community is assigned, which can raise issues.

Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein has been working on this issue in Albany as well and recently announced that a bill he proposed to address it passed in the state senate. The bill would prohibit the DSNY from issuing tickets after 3pm on Friday for garbage that is put out before 8pm so that Jewish residents aren’t fined for observing Shabbos. The bill now goes to Governor Hochul, who is expected to sign it in the coming months.

The Community Board encourages residents to follow the law and keep their property clean, and that those who believe they have been unfairly ticketed or have a complaint about a specific sanitation worker to send a complaint with all the relevant details to the Community Board at [email protected] or call 311 and they will forward it to the DSNY, who vowed to take immediate action.