“Once you touch that garbage, it’s yours”
Government threatens a citizen who cleaned up a local eyesore, proving once again that no good deed shall go unpunished. An old story, I know, but it never fails to outrage.
Every spring since 2001, Gaston Soucy of Hartlen Point, Nova Scotia, has been cleaning up wind-blown litter from a vacant lot near his home. About ten days ago, he did his annual chore, bagged the trash, and placed it at the curb for pick-up. The next garbage pick-up wasn’t for almost two weeks, however, so Halifax Regional Municipality threatened him with a $200 fine and clean-up charges.
Sunday, March 29, was a beautiful day. Mr. Soucy headed out to get rid of the winter’s collection of rubbish [on the vacant lot]. When he finished, he placed a couple of garbage bags and a couple of fish bins full of trash at the curb even though it was nearly two weeks before his regular HRM garbage pickup.
A day or two later he found a note from the municipality on his door warning him that he had a day to move the trash or he would be fined.
He called the city.
“Not one bit of that garbage was ours,” he said he told a city bylaw officer.
It turns out it was.
“Once you touch that garbage, it becomes your property,” Mr. Soucy said he was told.
Once you touch it, it’s yours. The pompous bureaucrat makes it up as he goes along.
Another petty tyrant official told a reporter that no one is permitted to place anyone else’s trash at the curb.