SAVANNAH -- Butt flingers, beware.
The city of Savannah is taking exception to your nasty habit of tossing cigarette butts wherever you please. On Wednesday, officials announced a multi-pronged effort to first educate, then later enforce anti-litter efforts against smokers.
"We're going to find the guilty folks and try to persuade them to do what they need to do, and if they won't, we're going to go to the next step," said Mayor Otis Johnson at a news conference.
Mr. Johnson noted that as he arrived for the meeting with reporters, he found the parking area behind City Hall littered with cigarette butts.
City ordinances allow for fines of up to $110 for littering, city spokesman Bret Bell said. But officials will set a lower fine for cigarette litter - probably about $50.
Mr. Johnson, Alderman Tony Thomas and other city leaders were joined at the news conference by the city of Tybee Island's anti-litter mascot, Nas-T-Butt, who offered a visual display of the accumulative effect of abandoned butts: a clear plastic bag about one-third full of discarded butts collected on River Street in a single day.
Lise Sundrla, executive director of the Savannah Development and Renewal Authority, said her staff quickly discovered the extent of the problem when they joined the city effort. In one two-hour period on four corners of Broughton Street, staffers picked up more than 4,000 cigarette butts, she said.
Installing cigarette receptacles cut that number by more than half when staffers surveyed the corners about a month later, she said.
The Augusta Chronicle ©2010 Morris Communications, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Why is this news in Augusta?
It's a subliminal suggestion to Mr Russell on how to use more of the SPLOST money.....
Well why lower the fine? The butt is the same trash as a beer or soda can is it not?
If you put your cig butt into your empty beer can before you drop it, is the fine double?
This looks like a Les Nesman article.............
City has to get income somehow...Since Sonny cut everyone's funding...lol. I wish I could be in charge of the cigarette butt disposal task force! Will this mean more officers on duty in the "high butt volume" areas? What a waste...
PTHS: your funny...lol butt very good point..
August should consider this litter law but should include garage sales signs left out after the sale and political sign left after the election. In fact we could solve several issues. When a person buys a pack of cigarettes they should pay a butt tax much like we pay a tire disposal fee. For the smokers who think this is unfair they can pickup their butts take them to the tax office and return them for a refund. Cha ching... A new enterprise is started; people picking up butts and making money. Now that we have that problem solved I need to think about those who wear spandex that shouldn't.
"Butts out in Savannah" Now there's an image, cold as it is. (Is Mass out? No, but your hat's on crooked.)
Now more music and Les Nesman. Maybe Savannah should have a turkey drop too?
Man, I wish they could have fined everybody that dropped litter at the inauguration and turned back that money back over to law-abiders. That would have been a good stimulus package right there.
Turning butt-flingers into gold-flingers, I like it.
litter is just litter, no difference. Put butt and trash cans where needed. Smokers pay taxes too, so fix the problem, collecting fines aren't going to fix problems, they never do.
Cigarette Litter - An unseen environmental danger
I would like to draw attention to a problem which is largely forgotten.
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Visual aids used to educate smokers about the harmful effects of their carelessness are easy enough, but proving to be ineffective. Innocently perhaps, smokers are generally unaware of the damage their littering causes the environmet.
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