2AM Trash Collection
When lofts first started becoming occupied downtown a few conflicts arose. One was between residents that wanted to sleep in the middle of the night and trash companies that were used to a vacant downtown where they could empty dumpsters at any hour. The problem still exists.
The commercial dumpsters near my loft might be picked up early in the morning but not the middle of the night. For other downtown residents that is not the case. One reader, Jason, sent me a link to a short video he made very early this morning:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BarqDSVyWOw[/youtube]
In the video we see as he walks south on 9th street and then turns left on Pine. An Allied Waste truck driver has rolled out about three commercial dumpsters and is emptying one. This is adjacent to the Paul Brown Lofts. Jason then walks over to the Pulaski Bank branch at 9th & Olive where we see on the public clock that is is 2:08.
This time is unreasonable for trash collection. 10pm? Sure. 6am? Yeah. 2am? I don’t think so.
Now one might say that is to be expected in a major downtown. I’ve walked in Manhattan at 2am and it is surprisingly quite quiet. For all the talk a decade ago about creating a 24/7 downtown we are certainly not there. Like the rest of the city & region downtown shuts down and it is quite. When it is only 75 degrees out at night residents may well have their windows open. The sound of a late night taxi going by is one thing but we all know how loud a trash truck can be.
Some say such late night collection is illegal. Maybe so. I was not able to turn up anything in a quick scan of city ordinances. Ald Young has indicated the downtown is a commercial zone and thus the 2am pickup is allowed. Perhaps this needs to be addressed legislatively? Or maybe Allied Waste just needs to schedule their collections near lofts at some closer to when people are going to bed or just getting up. The ability to sleep is a quality of life issue.
It’s illegal in Denver in residentially-zoned areas – this could be a problem with changing uses and changing expectations.
City of St. Louis Code Section 11.02.255 provides: “F. No refuse shall be collected from non-residential premises within two hundred (200) feet of residentially zoned premises between the hours of eight p.m. and six a.m.” (ordin. 61654)
At apartments near Indiana University, I swore that trash collectors made it a game to drop the Dumpsters as loudly as they could just to wake students.
I’m still dizzy from watching the video.
i agree. there needs to be a change in the legislation to address this. you know what else is bad downtown is the patrons coming out of flamingo bowl. i understand coming out of the bowl drunk and rowdy on a weekend night, but 2am on a wed? come on, joe edwards/flamingo bowl need to have a doorman or someone outside to address this ASAP. i live across the street and i can’t begin to tell you how often i’m woken up b/c of people coming out of there and yelling
Denver Sec. 36-7: “No person shall . . . engage in any trash, rubbish or garbage collection activity between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m., when such compacting or collection activity takes place on any premises adjacent to, or across the street or alley from a residential premises.”
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It sounds like the difference here is one of zoning versus actual use – St. Louis City Revised Code Chapter 26.52 (for the “I” central business district) allows both residential and commercial uses. It all boils down to whether or not the area is “residentially zoned”, per Bill’s reference (as the A-E zone districts are specifically), or if it’s assumed that mixed uses can abide by the least-stringent rules.
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It also gets back to one of the big challenges of areas in transition. Just because someone decides to build or buy a cool loft in an industrial area, what responsibility do the long-standing commercial users have to accomodate the different needs and expectations of the new residents? It’s not a whole lot different than moving next to a freeway or a railroad or a runway and bitching about the noise. Or moving next to a feedlot or a refinery and complaining about the smell. Or, in one of my previous lives, living a block away from a fire station – yes you can even learn to ignore sirens in the middle of the night.
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These are viable, contributing businesses, and it makes more sense to keep them than to run them out of town. And yes, trash collection is one of those things where hours can be adjusted. So while it’s probably going to take “changing the law”, has anyone thought to talk to the offending neighbors/businesses and to ask them to ask their hauler to come at a different time?! Remember the Golden Rule, he who has the gold rules, and if you’re paying for a service, you have leverage to have it happen when you want it to, and sometimes all it takes is asking nicely . . .
And to “fix” the St. Louis ordinance (City of St. Louis Code Section 11.02.255), KISS – simply amend it by removing two words, “residentially zoned”, repacing them with one word “residential” – that should be simple enough for the Board of Aldermen to figure out!?
I always know what time it is when I hear the thunderous roar of the dumpster outside my loft at Lucas and 16th – between 1 and 2 a.m.
“I’ve walked in Manhattan at 2am and it is surprisingly quite”
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It’s surprisingly quite what? Quiet? 😛
You want noise? For a few years I lived in Washington MO. right next to the rail and the riverfront downtown there. In the middle of the night, all hours of the day, locomotives would come through town blowing their horn. Made a trash truck or rowdy bowlers sound like the gentle backdrop of a mountain stream. Funny thing, I ended up liking it. In fact missing it when I moved DT St. L.
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To quote a musical title, “Bring on da noise!”
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Could be worse, you could be one of those folks who hears the Toas Hum.
I used to live in an apartment across the street from St. Roch church in Skinker-DeBal. The hourly chimes annoyed me for a while. Then, it just became part of the rhythm of life.
I’ve lived downtown for over 3 years. About a year after I moved here I started noticing the 2am pickups. After several dead ends, I contacted my alderwoman Kacie Starr-Tripplett. She offered to set up a meeting between myself and the Trash Commissioner. I told her that i wanted to contact DSLRA first to make this meeting more effective. It was decided that the president of DSLRA and I would meet with the Trash Commissioner first. I e-mailed Ald. Tripplett to request the meeting. I never heard back from Ald. Triplett, but I noticed an immediate stop in the midnight pickups. I suspect that she contacted the Trash Commissioner, who didn’t want to have to meet with residents and he simply contacted the trash haulers and said knock it off. I am starting to notice trash being picked up at odd hours again. Perhaps I need to have Ald Tripplett set up that meeting. I’m disappointed to hear that Ald Young is not receptive to residents concerns.
John
And there are two sides to this – rules and enforcement. Without enforcement, rules aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.
I live in The Hill, right around the corner from Cunetto’s. Their trash gets picked up around 2am as well, where we are all awoken to the sound of the un-recycled glass bottles clanking into the garbage truck. Wrong on SO many levels!