PANAMA CITY BEACH — The City Council will consider an ordinance Thursday that would require property owners along Front Beach Road to keep their trash cans off the side of the street.
Under the current law, trash cans cannot be left on the side of the road any longer than 12 hours in any three-day period. Under the proposed ordinance, homeowners could be subject to a $100 fine if a full or empty trash can is visible to pedestrians standing within the right of way.
City Manager Mario Gisbert said the city already requires residential property owners to have enclosures for their trash cans. The new ordinance would simply mean they could either move their cans into the enclosures or hire a hauler or someone to do that job.
The new ordinance only applies to
The ordinance does not specifically state how trash cans must be screened from view, just that they must not be visible.
Mayor Gayle Oberst said this is a good first step for the city to address the issue of garbage clutter throughout
“I think that will be fine,” she said. “We just don’t want the trash cans out.”
The ordinance could be expanded at a later date to include other roads, she said.
Oberst said the current law is almost impossible to enforce. With numerous haulers on the island picking up trash cans at different times on the same streets, code enforcement would need a hauler’s schedule under the current law to determine if a can has been left out longer than 12 hours, she added.
“The problem is, you can’t enforce that, because three are four different or five different” haulers going up the street, “depending on which day haulers come by,” she said. “My trash man picks up my garbage on Monday and Thursday. My mother-in-law lives next door to me and her trash hauler is a different one, and he picks up on Tuesday.”
The new law would be simple to enforce, because if a can is visible in the right of way, it is in violation of the ordinance, Oberst said.
Universal pickup
A copy of the city’s meeting agenda does not include an item calling for mandatory trash pickup. Gisbert said he does not plan to bring that forth as a proposal unless given that direction by council members.
The Bay County Tourist Development Council is encouraging the city of
There currently is no mandatory trash service along the beach, leaving homeowners and businesses the option of deciding whether to hire a hauler or find other ways to dump their trash.
The estimated 250,000 tourists that flooded the beach over the Fourth of July weekend left about 88 tons of trash and 10 truckloads of abandoned tents.
Oberst, who has voted in favor of mandatory trash pickup three times only to see it voted down, said the ordinance being considered Thursday might be a first step toward mandatory trash pickup.
“We’re on the right track,” she said. “We’re starting it with a little step and maybe we’ll move up to that.”
Oberst said many of the properties along
“If it’s a rental house, which most of the houses are, they have one garbage can,” Oberst said. “Well, there could be three families [renting] and all the garbage won’t go in the can, so then they’ll pile it all around. When the hauler picks it up, they’ll dump it and throw (the can) back down.”
In other action Thursday, the council is scheduled to vote on an ordinance to repeal a requirement for scooters to have poles with flags on the back. In June, the owner of scooter rental businesses on the beach sued Bay County and the city of
The council meets at 2 p.m. at City Hall,