Chicago litterbugs could lose their cars?
We don't know about you, but when we see someone throwing litter out the window of a car, we want to stop and pick it up — so we can chase them down, pull alongside them at the next traffic light, honk our horn and throw it back in. We want to snap their photo and shame them on Twitter, #trashcam. We want to follow them home, break into their car, dump a bag of garbage on the front seat and maybe let the air out of their tires.
But we will settle for a $1,500 fine and impounding their car. That's what Chicago Ald. Howard Brookins, 21st, has proposed, and he's not kidding. His ordinance, introduced in the City Council on Wednesday, has 18 co-sponsors.
Paper cups, chicken bones, ketchup packets, dirty diapers, used condoms — Brookins said he's seen it all, and he's sick of it. "We need to do something to get their attention, and if we take their cars, we think that will get their attention," he says.
His proposal would increase the maximum fine for all types of littering from $200 to $1,500. If the trash is tossed from a vehicle by someone 16 or older, the maximum fine would automatically kick in and the car would be seized. Zero tolerance. Why not?
Everyone older than three knows better than to litter. No way does anyone, anywhere, grow up thinking that the thing to do with an empty Starbucks cup is to roll down the window and fling it onto the communal landscape. It takes a special kind of selfishness to maintain a tidy vehicle by trashing the scenery for everyone else — kind of like letting your dog leave his business on your neighbor's lawn, which at the moment carries a mere $500 maximum fine (hint, hint, Ald. Brookins).
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-litter-20130610,0,4226624.story
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