New York, NY – The Department of Sanitation intends to make an example of a Staten Island man who tried to horn in on their turf by collecting recyclables from benefactors along his paper route.
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Poor Anthony McCorkle is trying to make ends meet by delivering the Staten Island Advance with the help of his brother’s Hyundai. Some of his customers know he’s in a tough spot, and they let him take the recyclable bottles in the bins outside their residence. But McCorkle is not a trained Department of Sanitation worker, and on Friday morning he was busted with a car full of contraband.
No-nonsense sanitation enforcer Robert Barrows spotted the bottles and cans in McCorkle’s borther’s 1997 Hyundai and told the perp to “turn off the car and give me the keys.” McCorkle tells the Staten Island Advance that he replied, “It’s my brother’s car. I need the car to finish my paper route.” That’s probably the saddest combination of sentences we’ve heard all week, but Barrows was unfazed, and impounded the car, which McCorkle’s brother has to pay $120 to get back. And both brothers each face a maximum $2,000 fine.
Ironically, if McCorkle had just used a bicycle to deliver the papers/collect the cans, we would have been totally legal.
A DSNY spokesman explains to the Advance, “It’s unlawful for any person, except for DSNY, to remove or transport by motor vehicle any recyclable materials placed out at curbside, within the stoop line, or in front of the premise for collection or removal by DSNY.” However: “The Department does not issue violations to individuals who remove curbside recyclables via shopping cart or on foot.”
What was he trying to do, take the bottles to Michigan to cash in for the 10¢ bottle deposit?
I wish for the sanitation worker and his superviser and all the jerks who cited this poor guy and his brother: you should be so poor and shouldn’t even have a brother to lend a car from , and you should have to walk with the papers to be delivered, in sub zero temperatures.
this is ridiculous, i hope a good lawyer represents him in court and he doesn’t have to pay anything.
It’s crazy. They saw the stuff in his car, they didn’t see him take it. What a chutzpa! It’s a crazy law and should be repealed.
It is about fines. How to increase revenue. Any normal judge should rule against the city
The Chinese do it all over Flatbush.
When I was a little kid, I’d collect glass soda bottles to make 2 cents a piece. It’s wrong to have such a crazy law. In my town and elsewhere people drive around the night before trash pick up day, with pick-up trucks to get stuff before garbage collection hauls it away. What’s wrong with that?
This is grossly unfair. If the Transportation Dept. can upgrade their Parking Enforcement Agents from walking to driving vehicles because its more efficient. Why can’t this poor little chinese lady and man do the same. Instaed of earning $15 he could earn $30. Thats capitalism buddy.
This ‘great’ city, driving hard working honest people to go and steal for a living. DSNY has its own police force with the power to impound vehicles and write tickets, what a chutzpah. Every ‘shmogagee’ in this city with a uniform believes they’re G-d’s gift to the world.
Liepa #10 . That was what this guy was doing, stealing. The bottles belong to the DSNY. The Torah has laws that regulate the last detail of our daily lives and so, lehavdil, do the State and City of New York
The Sanitation Department officer who issued the ticket, has no heart. Its not a fun job to collect cars or deliver newspapers. Give this these people a break.
Many years ago I put an unwanted refridgerator out in front of my house but well within the property line. My intent was to move it forward on recycle day. I heard noise outside and found a fellow stripping the fridge of some metal. I yelled at him that it was still mine and on my property and not for him to strip. I will never forget his response as he went back to his car.
He said he hopes that I never am in such a money situation that I too will have to resort to do what he is doing to make a living. His comments have remained with me and I am sorry for what I did that day.
I am also sorry for those whose need to live has brought them to the point of going thru others trash to get bottle/cans and sometimes food to survive.
The NYC Sanitation rules need to be relaxed to give those in need a break. Every rule can be bent and the enforcement of these rules should be reviewed to be fair to the truly needy.
reply to 18
Your story is a perfect illustration of the wrong answer on the LSAT
incorrect answer: choice (D) Since there was once a case where someone almost mistakenly took away something appearing to be garbage, McCorkle should be punished
the correct answer is choice (A) Since it was clear that the owner of the cans was MiYayaish on it by leaving at the curb, McCorkle should not be punished.
As an aside, criminal procedure law provides that no warrant is required to search any garbage left at curbside. It is considered hefker.
This is is cruel and foolish. One of the reasons for the deposit on bottles which started before there ever was recycling was to reduce litter on streets. The thinking was that people would return bottles to the store. But if they did not, and threw them on the street, then other would find them and return them for the money. So either way litter was reduced. What is wrong with what this guy is doing? He is making the sanitation dept work less hard and saving them time and money.