Pull into the parking lot of the local Salvation Army thrift
store and you’ll notice there’s something missing.
Faced with the rising cost of cleaning up the mounds of
donations and trash good Samaritans leave in its parking lot after
hours, the store has made the drastic decision to get rid of its
trailer and stop accepting donations at all.
Hollister – Pull into the parking lot of the local Salvation Army thrift store and you’ll notice there’s something missing.
Faced with the rising cost of cleaning up the mounds of donations and trash good Samaritans leave in its parking lot after hours, the store has made the drastic decision to get rid of its trailer and stop accepting donations at all.
“Basically it became more of a hassle for us to send a truck out there and pick up the garbage than it was worth. It actually became very expensive,” said Salvation Army Director of Retail Deanna Abbett. “And after a confrontation with some of the new homeowners in the area, we decided to take the trailer away.”
At the crux of both the high clean-up costs and the neighbor complaints is well-meaning locals’ tendency to drop donations off after-hours and on Sundays, when there is no one working to accept them, store Manager Dianna Mata said. In the middle of the night, scavengers rummage through the unattended donations, stealing anything of any value and leaving the trash strewn across the store’s Cushman Drive parking lot, she said.
Clean-up bills hit $8,000 – $10,000 a month, according to Mata; more than the donations would likely have been worth in the first place.
Neighbors began complaining about the unsightly mess and the noise, while store employees struggled to clean the lot up every Monday morning, Mata said. As of Friday, the extra work and exorbitant cost of the weekly clean-up became too much and the donation trailer was hauled away for good.
“What this means is that there are going to be no donations at the Hollister Salvation Army at all,” Abbett said. Now, she said, the only way to donate items to the local store is to call a Salvation Army hotline and schedule a pick-up.
City Code Enforcement Officer Mike Chambless, who has been working to stop the illegal dumping and stealing of donations since he took office in November, said Monday the absence of the donation trailer wouldn’t stop his efforts to arrest or fine anyone caught in the act.
“To be honest, I don’t think (taking away the trailer) is going to solve their problems,” he said. “The people who are going to dump out there are still going to dump up there. But I’m going to nail anyone I can.”
Chambless said the penalties for illegal dumping can range from a $54 fine to a $1,000 fine and six months in prison. The former is for an act of basic littering, while the latter can be the punishment for appliance dumping – leaving old refrigerators, dryers, or washing machines unattended in the lot.
“We do take reports of people illegally dumping things off more often than you’d think,” said Officer George Ramirez of the Hollister Police Department. “People need to realize that they can’t just do that.”
Ramirez added there have been similar problems at the local Goodwill, where one man was charged with stealing after he and another man were caught rummaging through the organization’s donation bins Sunday night.
To schedule a Salvation Army pick-up of your donations, call 800-958-7825.
Jessica Quandt covers politics for the Free Lance. Reach her at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or at jq*****@fr***********.com.
