I recall a candidate for Peoria City Council — I forget exactly who– discuss a plan to fight litter similar to this one:

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) - Fed up with burger wrappers, French fry containers and paper cups, Oakland is the first city in the nation to force fast-food restaurants, convenience stores and other businesses to help pay for cleaning up street trash.

Under a tax approved Tuesday night by the City Council, businesses will be assessed between $230 and $3,815 annually, depending on their size. More than three-quarters of the affected businesses would only pay the minimum fee, which amounts to 63 cents a day.

I hate litter bugs. When I lived on East McClure, the problem was caused by neighbors emptying their cars of empty booze bottles and from the trash pedestrians threw on the ground after the left the gasoline station/convenience store on the corner.

A large portion of the litter is fast food wrappers. But not all of it.

Regardless, the fast food joints didn’t cause the litter. Saying the do is like saying Smith & Wesson causes drive by shootings. Litter is caused by people who litter. Why should a restaurant pay to clean it up? Or more accurately, why should I pay, because businesses don’t pay taxes, their customers do.

It’s far more reasonable to fine the Bejezus out of people the cops catch littering. A $500 fine is certainly not out of the question, perhaps a little low. And I still say that throwing litter from a moving vehicle should be a felony and grounds for impounding the vehicle.

But actually enforcing the law is hard work. Look as the ridiculous firestorm that erupted when Peoria police gave out a handful of jaywalking tickets. Raising taxes on evil big corporations like McDonald’s is easy.

Funny. Out here in Kingspark Estates with all the “trailer trash,” I can walk two blocks without seeing a piece of litter on the ground.

litter,taxes,fast food, McDonald’s

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 8th, 2006 at 12:57 pm and is filed under Overset. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.