McIntire: ‘Let them live with the trash.’
Councilman Bryan McIntire had an idea when it comes to dealing with all the restaurant fliers and other advertisements that Councilman John Olszewski Sr. says are littering his district: Pick them up and throw them out.
Olszewski is sponsoring a bill — intended to prevent unwanted advertising circulars from becoming litter. The bill would require that businesses using fliers and circulars as advertising to maintain a toll-free number that residents could call to end delivery. The bill would also make it illegal to place those fliers or circulars on cars.
But McIntire suggested the bill shouldn’t be needed.
“With all due respect, if a community or shopping center doesn’t have enough self-pride to pick up litter and trash, then they deserve to live in their squalor,” McIntire, a Republican, told Olszewski during the council work session on Tuesday. “My neighborhood, if I see trash anywhere — on the street, in the street, between the curb and the grass — I stop and pick it up and so do the others. And if people don’t want to live that way and don’t want to go to that much trouble, let them live with the trash.”
“Councilman, unfortunately everyone doesn’t have the philosophy you have,” replied Olszewski, a Democrat who represents Dundalk, Essex and part of Rosedale. ” You’re not going to change people’s habits, so this is one way of trying to get to a point where we don’t have to have them make a decision to pick up trash that they didn’t put there in the first place, that someone else created.”
McIntire, who represents Parkton, Kingsville and part of Cockeysville, told Olszewski that his bill was unenforceable, and suggested “you and I can set the example.”
“I saw a lady pick up some trash in a shopping center the other day and carry it to the bin,” McIntire said. “I said to her ‘You’re a good citizen. Thank you very much.’ That’s the kind of thing that encourages people to not litter.”