Brooklyn residents get fines for garbage that doesn't exist: they accuse the Sanitation Department of fraud

Brooklyn residents say Sanitation Department staff New Yorkers are being fined for allegedly scattered garbage for no reason at all. Homeowners ask the department to deal with the situation and say that it "smacks of fraud" on the part of department employees. The details were told by the publication CBS.

Residents of the district claim they have a video proving that sanitary workers issued them unreasonable fines for garbage.

“What they did was a scam,” said Williamsburg resident Abe Lichtenstein, who couldn't believe his eyes when he saw the fine notice in his name earlier this month.

According to him, an employee of the New York City Department of Sanitation parked outside his house on Hayward Street, got out of the car, walked along a perfectly clean sidewalk and driveway, and left a notice on the door about a garbage penalty: “A lot of scattered bottles, cups, paper packages and papers on the sidewalk.

“I left the house and looked at the sidewalk and saw nothing, not even toothpicks,” Liechtenstein said. - So why was I served with a notice of the fine? "

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Abe Rutner lives in the same area and faces a similar situation. A 2017 video from security cameras captured an ambulance pulling up to the clean sidewalk in front of his house, after which the employee left a notice of the fine and left.

As a result, the fine was canceled, but Rutner does not like the fact that such situations still happen.

“This needs to be stopped. City officials should not abuse their power, ”he said. - Not everyone will go to fight them and challenge the fines. And that, in fact, your word is against his word: if you have no proof, you will not be able to win. "

State Senator Simha Felder and City Councilor Kalman Yeager have drafted bills for state and city councils that require all city agencies that issue fines to provide photographs of violations. At the moment, there is no such requirement for them.

The Department of Sanitation said that any employee found to have issued an unfounded notice of a fine would be subject to disciplinary action and retraining. The department added that there is no norm on fines, so no one is pressured on employees to write more fines.

Liechtenstein stressed: the problem is not that he was fined $ 100. The question is different: the townspeople deserve an honest attitude from the authorities.

The Department of Sanitation said that they are continuing to investigate the validity of the fine issued to Liechtenstein, and added that the video may not show the whole story.

Trash fines in New York can be dismissed in court if the person fined has evidence that the charges were frivolous.