City Officials Ready to Enforce New Trash Ordinance on Jan. 1

The new trash ordinance that the Council passed last summer will go into effect on Jan. 1st and city inspectors said last week that they are prepared to hand out fines.

“It’s going to be pretty tough because trash trucks go out really early, but we’ll have our guys out there with them to check for compliance,” said Nick Catinazzo, Revere Health Inspector. “For the first month, we’re really going to go gung ho on it. Basically, we’ll be looking for bags that are on the ground and are not rodent-free bags. Each one will be a $25 fine. So, if it’s five bags on the curb and they’re not rodent-free, it would be a $125 fine.”

Rodent-free bags are commonly sold now and carry the brand name of ‘Mint-X.’ They can be found at many stores in the City, including BJ’s Wholesale Club.

Fines would also go out for those who have bags protruding out of the trash barrel. If barrels are put out before the morning of trash pickup, they must have their covers on them. Failure to have covers on will also result in a fine.

Finally, another major piece of the new ordinance is storage of trash on a person’s property.

Inspectors will be able to ticket and fine residents for improper storage of trash on their property. If trash is stored in bags that are not rodent-free or are not in trash barrels, that will be subject to a fine.

Ward 6 Councillor Charlie Patch championed the ordinance last summer, and after quite a bit of discussion and several delays, got the measure passed.

Since that time, Chelsea’s Board of Health held hearings and passed a similar measure aimed at getting trash off the streets.

Catinazzo said there would be some leniency early on, but not much.

“We’ll pretty much be ticketing regularly until we get everybody online with the new regulations,” he said. “We’ll have some leniency, but we want people to follow the rules.”