"I know it is the law," Jared Barnhart complained at a Butchers Hill community meeting last week. "But set us aside and let us do what we've always been doing."
Valentina Ukwuoma, who heads Baltimore's Bureau of Solid Waste, has some empathy for those with concerns about garbage storage. "That is a problem, I admit that," she said. Some neighborhood leaders are trying to determine if they can pay higher taxes for increased pickup.
On the touchy issue of trash cans, though, Ukwuoma sounded unmoved.
"This is a law that has been on the books forever," she said. "How do people feel when they are walking down the street and they are walking over trash bags? This does not look good."
The Dixon administration had briefly considered issuing plastic trash cans to everyone in the city - but the plan has been delayed in part after residents from neighborhoods with small alleys complained that the cans wouldn't fit. The city still hopes to distribute cans in the future, with smaller ones for densely populated, narrow-alley neighborhoods.
But, as the city listens and cajoles, officials are making something very clear to nervous neighborhoods: Those who do not comply with new rules will be fined. If the fines aren't paid, homes can be added to the city's annual tax lien sale, a rule that's been in place since 1998.
And they will have to answer to Eric D. Booker, and he heads a unit that is one of the few parts of city government set to grow in this tight budget year.
On this particular day, Booker, the head of code enforcement, worked a full shift but still came to a 7 p.m. Butchers Hill community meeting with two of his inspectors. He has 10 inspectors now, and authorization to hire an additional 20.
"I'm the stinger," he announced. "The law says put it in a can. My job is to enforce the law."
Still, he smiles and shows a softer, I-can-be-reasonable side. "It is going to take me a long while to get to all of the places I need to be," he conceded, adding that he won't fine people on their trash days - at least initially.
Booker and another inspector, Clement Rivers Sr., drove around on a recent Thursday seeking violations and displaying their investigative techniques.
"Our usual suspects are on the corner," Booker announced, pointing to four bags of trash piled on the sidewalk in the 2100 block of McElderry St. in East Baltimore. No cans. Definitely no lids.
