Elderly Woman Fined $100 For Dumping Trash In Can

Photograph by mementosis on Flickr

Today's lesson: Sanitation Department workers aren't all as lovable as Roc. When they have bad days, they will make sure someone feels their wrath. Darbe Pitofsky, an 83-year-old Upper East Sider, learned this lesson the hard way. She says that she was recently chased down and screamed at by a sanitation agent; then given a $100 fine, all for dumping her trash in a corner trash receptacle.

According to Pitofsky, she was leaving her apartment one morning and dumped a bag full of newspapers into a nearby can. It was then that things went bad. A Sanitation Department agent allegedly came running up to Pitofsky, demanding that she admit to having dumped trash in the trash can. According to the Sanitation Department, street cans are for pedestrian use only. We'd love to get into the technicalities behind when a person becomes a pedestrian, but we've got to stay on task here.

When Pitofsky admitted she had deposited her trash in the can, the agent reportedly went nuts. Disrespect a trash can, and you disrespect a Sanitation agent. According to Pitofsky, the man began to yell, "You know you can't do that! Give me your ID! Give me your ID or I'm going to bring you in!"

Pitofsky imagined the worst. "I thought he was going to put me in a cell," she told The New York Post. Pitofsky then offered to get her ID from her apartment, and the agent followed her to her building. Once she retrieved it, he wrote the ticket for $100. When Pitofsky expressed shock at the fee, the agent allegedly shot back, "You want me to make it $300?!"

If Pitofsky's story is correct, we can't help but wonder: Is it possible that the Papa John's Sanitation Department vigilante is back? Lord help us all if he is.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Chris O'Shea in News on July 5, 2011 12:25 PM

Comments [rss]

Ann

THIS is why you can't put household trash in the street receptacles http://www.sheepsheadbites.com...

felixthecat

Entitled people in NYC are contemptible. First that city council member went after the asian traffic enforcer for doing his job and now this old MODEL wants to go after this sanitation guy for doing his job. what his shocking about these 2 stories is city employees actually working. sorry but your residential trash belongs in your bldg trash can and newspapers are recyclable. he should have ticketed her for that as well.

felixthecat

Never too late to learn to recycle

jza1218

So is this up just because she's old? Seems to me that if she thinks this is acceptable at her age she's probably been doing this shit for decades.

Roseann Chase

I paid $32.67 for a XBOX 360 and my mom got a 17 inch Toshiba laptop for $94.83 being delivered to our house tomorrow by FedEX. I will never again pay expensive retail prices at stores. I even sold a 46 inch HDTV to my boss for $650 and it only cost me $52.78 to get. Here is the website we using to get all this stuff, LiveCent.com

Adam Moreira

She may be elderly, but I'm not sure that I can sympathize here - those street trash receptables are only there to prevent litter. I wish that the old-style warnings were put on those cans (which said No Household or Business Trash on them).

This is a rule that probably predates my birth.

Brian

was she blocking a bike lane?

sheryl10003

why doesn't the City put recycling bins on every corner?

Mordicai

I agree, lets raise taxes & hire more sanitation workers to clean the streets. Wait, people want more government services & less taxes? People are dumb.

ANGRYGOD11

At 83 years-old, she should know better. I'm sure she has been disgusted by overflowing trash cans more times than most of us.

robingee

Wasn't this same situation a story last year as well?

jaycjay

Yep, almost identical story from December: an 80-year old woman ticketed for throwing a bag containing "newspapers and other household garbage" (don't believe the Gothamist headline or interpretation of the story; if you click through to the source articles you'll see that it wasn't just "a newspaper") into a corner wastebasket:
http://gothamist.com/2010/12/0...

robingee

That's what I thought!

ktinnyc

That was a story about a guy getting fined for taking something out of the trash. It's a waaaayyyy different story.

Eric Bringslid

Just don't leave your apartment folks, that's the moral here...

ktinnyc

I've left my apartment nearly every day this year and have yet to get a ticket for throwing out my household trash in a public trash can. What's your point?

earwicker

How is this news any more than someone getting a parking ticket? "Minor law actually enforced".

Mordicai

But is there ANY WAY she could have known that there was a $100 fine for throwing her household trash into that can?!? Jeeze, next thing you know some poor business is going to get fined for throwing their garbage out in one of these.