New litter bylaw will be a nightmare for Dublin retailers

Run_to_da_hills

New anti littering implications will be too costly to implement for some Dublin retailers.

The bye-laws came into effect on Friday 2 January and require all pubs and premises that serve take-away food to clean the public footpaths 50 metres either side of them every one to two hours during opening times.

Retailers who serve take-away food are now also required to print their name and address on all packaging in an additional Big Brother requirement. In the case of chains or franchises, specify the branch the packaging has come from. Of course this would be great if someone had a personal grudge against you and decided to scatter a load of your branded wrappers about the town and frame you.

Pubs must provide cigarette bins outside their premises and the distribution of leaflets and flyer's has been completely banned.

Those who want to distribute free promotional material will have to apply for a license, which costs €250 per event. Failure to comply to the above could invoke fines of up to €19,000, enough to put the small sole trader out of business.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0109/litter.html

niceirishfella

More Nanny State Rubbish.........excuse the pun.

Guy:Incognito

Who'da thunk this would be a RTDH thread.

How is it nanny state rubbish? This is not forcing people to wear setbelts (which also isnt nannystateism but it's usually dragged up). Litter is a filthy disgusting thing and makes street look horrible. Anythign that can be done to clean it up is fine by me.
What exactly is wrong with making people keep the street clean? If filthy knacker customers cant stoip flining rubbish on the ground then the next one in the chain is the retailer.

Litter fines should all have a couple of zeros added to the end aswell for anyone caught.

Sonnenblumen

Stekelly wrote: »

Who'da thunk this would be a RTDH thread.

How is it nanny state rubbish? This is not forcing people to wear setbelts (which also isnt nannystateism but it's usually dragged up). Litter is a filthy disgusting thing and makes street look horrible. Anythign that can be done to clean it up is fine by me.
What exactly is wrong with making people keep the street clean? If filthy knacker customers cant stoip flining rubbish on the ground then the next one in the chain is the retailer.

Litter fines should all have a couple of zeros added to the end aswell for anyone caught.

Makes as much sense as next time Liverpool fail to score the club should fine their goalkeeper.:eek:

Run_to_da_hills

Stekelly wrote: »

Litter is a filthy disgusting thing and makes street look horrible.

You have been indoctrinated by too many corporation notices. :rolleyes:

Stekelly wrote: »

What exactly is wrong with making people keep the street clean? If filthy knacker customers cant stoip flining rubbish on the ground then the next one in the chain is the retailer.

Litter fines should all have a couple of zeros added to the end as well for anyone caught.

Not the point, it is hitting at the retailer, making him ultimately responsible for all the actions of joe public. If I don't like your coffee shop I can hang you with a littering fine.

If they want to tackle the real litter problem they should ban all junk food restaurants from serving after 2AM and not hit out at the struggling day time retailer. Anyway retailers as it is pay exorbitant rates to cover street cleaning costs without this extra expense.

Guy:Incognito

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

You have been indoctrinated by too many corporation notices. :rolleyes:
.

So what? Litter is a good thing now?
Cop on, knackers drop litter and the sooner people in this country start to realise that, the better.

I have been sat in traffic and seen respectable looking people (men and women) in officewear finishing cups of coffee and just dropping the cup or putting on a wall as the walk by. Knackers.

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

Not the point, it is hitting at the retailer, making him ultimately responsible for all the actions of joe public. If I don't like your coffee shop I can hang you with a littering fine.

If they want to tackle the real litter problem they should ban all junk food restaurants from serving after 2AM and not hit out at the struggling day time retailer. Anyway retailers as it is pay exorbitant rates to cover street cleaning costs without this extra expense.

People only litter at night now?

Go to any McDonalds or Burger King, moreso the drivethroughs. A good few average joe citizens are filthy scumbags. They park up somewhere to eat and just drop it out the window when they are finished. God forbid they should get out and find a bin. Why should the council/government pay someone to run around after these people? The best we can hope for is that a Gard happens to spot them, but the chnaces are fairly slim of a Gard happening by the second someone drops something. Fines for this when they do though should be massive.


Whats the issue with making a business send someone out every hour to clean up their own rubish near their premises? Your talking 5 mins or less to walk up and down for 1 person. Unless there is massive amounts of rubbish from your establishment it wont be an issue, if there is then you deserve a fine nd you have problems with you customers.

Run_to_da_hills

Stekelly wrote: »

So what? Litter is a good thing now?

No, I don't drop litter and can see why no one else can do the same. I don't need to be reminded by posters and it shouldn't require UK style nannyism.

Stekelly wrote: »

A
Cop on, knackers drop litter and the sooner people in this country start to realise that, the better.

Agree and I am not at all against heavy fines for those that throw their garbage on the streets.

Stekelly wrote: »

I have been sat in traffic and seen respectable looking people (men and women) in officewear finishing cups of coffee and just dropping the cup or putting on a wall as the walk by. Knackers.

Agree, they should be fined if caught but not the retailer that sold them the cup of coffee which is the whole argument of this thread.

Stekelly wrote: »

People only litter at night now?

Walk through Ennis any morning after 3.AM and you will know what I am talking about. During the day Ennis could as well be a candidate for the Tidy Towns competition.

Stekelly wrote: »

Go to any McDonalds or Burger King, moreso the drivethroughs. A good few average joe citizens are filthy scumbags. They park up somewhere to eat and just drop it out the window when they are finished. God forbid they should get out and find a bin.

The fast food joints are a bane on society as it is from the junk that they serve. They already comply to these new state laws because all of their wares are already marked with their logos and most of them as it is tidy up on a regular basis within a few yards of their premises.

Stekelly wrote: »

Why should the council/government pay someone to run around after these people? The best we can hope for is that a Gard happens to spot them, but the chnaces are fairly slim of a Gard happening by the second someone drops something. Fines for this when they do though should be massive. .

Most of these places are already covered by CCTV. :pac:

Stekelly wrote: »

Whats the issue with making a business send someone out every hour to clean up their own rubbish near their premises?.

Its easily known you were never in business, a small sole trader has to shut shop every hour and do a round up within 50 feet. What about that guy that sells coffee and sandwiches from that tiny stall opposite the Israeli Embassy.

Stekelly wrote: »

Your talking 5 mins or less to walk up and down for 1 person. Unless there is massive amounts of rubbish from your establishment it wont be an issue, if there is then you deserve a fine and you have problems with you customers.

Every hour is extreme. Once or twice a day wouldn't be too bad. Next thing we will hear will be the Etagging all consumer wrappers so that they can and trace them back to the offending consumer through the EFT.

Executive Steve

The thing is though, i'm a small time club promoter and dj, and flyers are pretty much the lifeblood of our business; we use every single avenue of publicity available to us including the internet, facebook, social media, mailing lists, forums, radio ads, listings magazines, posters, podcasts, etc etc yadda yadda but without flyers being handed out by someone who knows what they're flyering for a night is doomed to failure. We could apply for a licence for each event, but 250 quid is about the same amount of money we spend on printing the flyers in the first place, and even when we pack a club out we're not exactly making any actual money or profit off the gigs at all... I'd be happy enough to shell out 250 quid on an annual basis but to do that for every (monthly!) event we run would be impossible...

Other capital cities like Paris and Berlin and Barcelona have big Pillar box type things where theatres, venues etc can stick announcements on free of charge at most intersections; they're an absolute godsend when you're a tourist in a foreign city and you're looking for something to do, as are flyers... In Dublin now we have neither - nor have the new bye-laws been effectively communicated; the first I heard of this was yesterday; ignorance is no defence before the law but if i'm going to be fined 19 grand for publicising a bona fide cultural event by printing up a mere thousand flyers then i'd like to be aware of the finacial risks i'm running.

Additionally, the club flyer is traditionally the playground for up and coming graphic designers who often do them as a nixer or to help out a mate; over the years many of them have got their start in the business by designing them, and over the years many of them have been works of art - i've been collecting them for over a decade!

i DO welcome the fast food regulations though - they're a huge source of litter and turn our city into an eyesore; businesses should definitely be held accountable for the state of the pavements outside of their premises, you won't see me argue against that, nor do i really see how anyone COULD argue against it.

DubTony

Stekelly wrote: »

Whats the issue with making a business send someone out every hour to clean up their own rubish near their premises? Your talking 5 mins or less to walk up and down for 1 person. Unless there is massive amounts of rubbish from your establishment it wont be an issue, if there is then you deserve a fine nd you have problems with you customers.

As a retailer, if I sell you something and you remove it from my premises, it's yours, packaging and all. It'd be a bit difficult or you to take the bottle of coke outside without the bottle. Why should I receive a fine because you littered and why should I send out staff to walk behind you picking up your rubbish?

While the idea of sending out staff to clean up rubbish is not necesarily a bad one, and most retailers do it already as they have been responsible for litter outside their premises for many years, it's not the right way to discourage littering. In fact it may get to the point where people who couldn't care less will litter the streets in full knowledge that a staff member of one of the shops will pick it up soon anyway.

A few years ago I had a bunch of 50 newspapers stolen from the box in Crumlin. The papers were dumped all over the streets in Walkinstown. I got a fine because the delivery label was found. Fair?

What's happening here is that the city is trying to reduce costs by reducing the workload of street cleaners, and removing some of them sfrom the street while looking at a new revenue stream of fines on retailers. Those same retailers basically pay the wages for those same streets to be cleaned. Remember Ste, businesses pay massive rates. This is what keeps your city working. There's also the expense of paying REPAK for the packaging that's used on the product the retailer sells. Yes. The retailer pays REPAK for the recycling of the packaging on the product he sold. There's your coke bottle again.

As an aside, if an employee steps onto the road to pick up litter, and is hit by a car, does the business insurance cover it?

Victor

DubTony wrote: »

What's happening here is that the city is trying to reduce costs by reducing the workload of street cleaners, and removing some of them sfrom the street while looking at a new revenue stream of fines on retailers. Those same retailers basically pay the wages for those same streets to be cleaned. Remember Ste, businesses pay massive rates. This is what keeps your city working.

I think you have the focus wrong here.

Café A - dine in only: doesn't cause a litter problem
Café B - takeaway only: causes litter by the very nature of the businesss

Why should Café A subsidise Café B's rates bill, just so Café B can increase their turnover and pay rent on a smaller premises?

Burial

I have to say, as a neutral in this, I'm pretty stumped in what to choose.

On one hand, it is unfair to some retailers that they have to foot another bill.

On the other, it's not like you can offset the cost by raising your prices.

Tbh, this is complicated and unnessecary. I DO think Mcdonalds, subway and any other takeaway premises should have to clean up. But only a few times a day. If your opening at night, past 12, you must clean up every hour.

Having said this, you can't force a customer to stay in your premises and dispose of rubbish. As someone else pointed out, it's not the shops responsibility now.

Easiest solution for companies is to give people 20 cents per wrapper they find. (Like euro saver menu, €1.20 for a hamburger and you get the twenty cents back after you dispose of it in Mcdonalds)

how clean would these 50 metres have to be? Just of their rubbish or of other shops also? Also what happens to shops in shopping centres?

DubTony

Victor wrote: »

I think you have the focus wrong here.

Café A - dine in only: doesn't cause a litter problem
Café B - takeaway only: causes litter by the very nature of the businesss

Why should Café A subsidise Café B's rates bill, just so Café B can increase their turnover and pay rent on a smaller premises?

Fair enough. Maybe I'm approaching this from a more personal point of view having been subject to the treatment of the council (I think Run to da Hills would call it TYRANNY ) But why should the very businesses that pay to keep the city going run the risk of being fined because it's customers have no respect for their environment?

Most businesses that send out packaging of this type have bins inside and/or outside their premises. They pay the (now exhorbitant) waste removal charges (in many cases to the council) as well as rates. Businesses in the city get nothing for the rates they pay.

As to your question about why should Café A subsidise Café B's rates bill. When a business premises is assessed for rates does the council take into consideration that business A will cause more of a drain on the councils resources than business B? I don't know the answer to this, but it probably should be factored in. The fact that rates assessment is not transparent doesn't help either. It might be better for councils to introduce specific taxes or charges for particular businesses.

All businesses are subsidising everyone else. It's the way it's been since FF dropped household rates. There's no connection between the services provided by the council and the rates charged, as the services to businesses are almost non-existent. Rates are first and foremost a way of generating revenue for local councils and are based primarily on the size of the business premises and it's location. I'm not sure if the type of business it is has any effect on the rates charge.

This is not the way to address a litter problem. It looks to me like a cynical revenue generating excercise that will cost business millions and push retail prices up. Businesses in the city are constantly battling with litter. Most of them do their bit. Putting retailers names and addresses on bottles of alcohol was not introduced. It was a ludicrous idea. Forcing retailers to do this simply allows the council to identify the completely innocent "guilty party".

Sonnenblumen

Victor wrote: »

I think you have the focus wrong here.

Café A - dine in only: doesn't cause a litter problem
Café B - takeaway only: causes litter by the very nature of the businesss

Why should Café A subsidise Café B's rates bill, just so Café B can increase their turnover and pay rent on a smaller premises?

Silly analogy really, there is already a much wider range of business types, scale etc out there. This argument is too simplistic.

The basis for determining rates is fortunately not based on whether enjoy your coffee in or on the go. We are supposedly living in a democracy, unfortunately the system is far from perfect. BUT if your business model is outdated/inflexible, chances are you can change it. Now where can I order coffee online?

Bandara

I for one can't wait until the fun and games start between retailers in bitter competition with each other.

Of course I'm sure no-one would ever deliberately spread the rubbish of their enemy and then ring the council to complain about it in order to make them get fines. No, no, that will never happen.

Like F**K it won't

Victor

DubTony wrote: »

But why should the very businesses that pay to keep the city going run the risk of being fined because it's customers have no respect for their environment?

McDonalds tend to give out bags instead of trays after 9pm. If they encouraged more people to stay on the premises, then there would be less litter. However, in the fast food category, I imagine the small independent chipper nearer popular watering holes are the worst offenders. Suggestion: don't give drunk people lots of packaging and expect them to eat outside your chipper.

There's no connection between the services provided by the council and the rates charged, as the services to businesses are almost non-existent. Rates are first and foremost a way of generating revenue for local councils and are based primarily on the size of the business premises and it's location. I'm not sure if the type of business it is has any effect on the rates charge.

Rates are based on a multiple of either the value of the premises or the rent paid on it.

If the council didn't get rates, services would fall apart and the city couldn't operate. Do you think chippers could operate if there was no street lighting?