It’s hard to believe police can justify investigating theft from
recycling bins when there are burglaries, assaults, armed robberies
and murders – on top of a plethora of other more urgent crimes – to
which they must respond first.
It’s hard to believe police can justify investigating theft from recycling bins when there are burglaries, assaults, armed robberies and murders – on top of a plethora of other more urgent crimes – to which they must respond first.
The bottom line is that police have higher priorities, such as ridding the city of its growing problems with gangs and methamphetamine addiction.
But that doesn’t mean recycling theft isn’t sometimes a problem, and one that potentially stands to deter the image of downtown and the city as a whole, while making some homeowners downright uncomfortable.
Authorities’ announcement that they will enforce laws against recycling theft – primarily acted out by homeless residents – now means there is at least a precedented avenue to prosecute the worst of offenders.
The vast majority of local transients do not cause a problem. They go about their business quietly, as unobtrusively as possible. They contribute to the recycling effort, which benefits everyone, and they usually don’t leave a mess behind. They earn income and get by as best they can.
Some, however, are not as courteous, which is merely the chance of human nature and almost ineludable. For those residents, the enforcement option stands to send a message that they have to keep it clean and they have to stay out of other citizens’ personal business. Or else.
If they don’t and if local officials allow the problem to continually worsen, it has potential to leave a long-lasting, negative imprint on the reputation of the merchant-heavy downtown area, where business owners face an array of less manageable problems during this down economy.
We don’t expect police to launch a Garbage Theft Task Force anytime soon, but they must show some effort toward deterring a small but potentially consequential problem. They have to control it to some extent.
And as long as authorities now intend to enforce this longstanding law, we also suggest they consider the same treatment toward offenders of other seemingly minor crimes, such as the daily presence of fruit and ice-cream salesmen without licenses and proper food inspection documentation. It only seems fair, especially considering the stringent requirements through which government puts law-abiding business owners.
