City weighs ordinances to ban dumpster diving and aggressive panhandling

The Tehachapi City Council, at its Dec. 1, 2014 meeting at the Wells Education Center, approved the introduction of two ordinances written in response to citizen complaints of an increase in bothersome solicitation and of people rummaging through residents’ garbage.

One ordinance would prohibit loitering and aggressive solicitation at specified locations, and another ordinance would prohibit “unauthorized entry into waste containers” – otherwise known as dumpster diving.

“The foraging of waste containers clearly represents a risk to the public health and safety of our residents,” Tehachapi Police chief Kent Kroeger said in his report.

People foraging in waste containers, he said, “leads to waste strewn about our streets and neighborhoods,” access by animals to the trash and containers left in roads and walkways.

Kroeger said that waste often contains personal information, and foraging increases the possibility of identity theft.

The ordinance would prohibit “the rummaging, exploring, tampering, movement, tipping, defacing, destruction, scavenging or otherwise searching a waste container or the contents thereof.”

Public speaker Richard Felter encouraged citizens to offer kindness those who go through neighborhood trash as a means of survival, perhaps by offering them money.

“They’re not doing it out of want, they’re doing it out of need,” he said.

Tehachapi Valley Recreation and Park District Manager Matt Young thanked the city for considering the proposal, saying the district faces constant liability as scavengers expose themselves to possible needles, razors and construction debris.

“We combat it every day,” Young said.

Mayor Pro-Tem Susan Wiggins said, “A lot of people go through trash to support their drug habit.”

It’s a matter of health and safety, City Manager Greg Garrett said.

“Tehachapi is not in the social welfare program business. We want a tidy neat town.”

The city rubbish is taken to Benz, he said, where they are mandated to divert glass, plastic and other recyclables. If the items are taken before disposal at Benz, Garrett said, “it harms our diversion numbers.”

Garrett said the city has been sued more than once by people hit on the head when dumpster diving.

The anti-aggressive solicitation proposal would prohibit conduct that “is likely to cause a reasonable person to (i) fear bodily harm to oneself or to another, damage to or loss of property, or (ii) otherwise be intimidated into giving money or other thing of value.”

The ordinance would prevent solicitation within 30 feet of a bank, savings and loan bank, credit union or check cashing business during business hours, and near ATM machines.

The solicitation ordinance would not impact on traditional solicitors like the Salvation Army or high school boosters – unless they get aggressive, Chief Kroeger told Forde Files.

Kroeger assured public speaker Carl Gericke that the ordinance would not stop the roudy Mountain Festival boosters from swooping onto the City Council and other gatherings to sell their fundraising Good Time Badges.

“The way it’s written, that would be illegal,” Gericke said.

For the full texts of the ordinances, see http://tehachapicityhall.com. (Go to Government, City Clerk, Agendas, 2014, Dec. 1).

The City Council will hold public hearings on the two ordinances at its Dec. 15, 2014 meeting.