According to California law, littering is a “crime against public health and safety.” It carries a minimum fine of $250 for a first-time offense.
Why, then, is nothing being done about the extensive littering caused by the vagrants who’ve taken up permanent residence on the south—Culver City—side of Venice Boulevard under the 405 freeway overpass?
Ah, but homelessness isn’t a crime, you argue. No, it’s not. But littering is. And with good reason.
The filth on the sidewalks, which spills over onto neighboring streets, has already attracted pigeons. Before long, it will attract rats—and the plague. If all this seems surreal, do remember that not too long ago, in February of 2019, there was an outbreak of typhus in the city of Los Angeles.
And there’s human waste as well. Residents around the area have reported seeing human feces on the sidewalks and have seen vagrants come down their streets to urinate out in the open. These are areas where young children live.
Should babies and elementary-age school children be exposed to fecal matter, urine, and suchlike waste?
Call us crazy, but we at Protect Culver City beg to differ. No one should be exposed to biohazardous waste, used needles—and the threat of viruses like Hep B and HIV—and to medieval diseases that we in the first world had long thought we’d overcome.
This garbage and waste—plastic bags, soda cups, needles, urine, feces—all goes to the oceans. If you’ve eschewed plastic straws for the harm they might do to our ocean life, think of all the harm the waste that goes directly into the storm drains does.
Not only is Mayor Megan Sahli Wells guilty of facilitating this state of affairs, she’s guilty of applying the law unequally.
While you and I would be fined to the fullest extent of the law if we happened to drop the slightest bit of trash on the streets, the vagrants get a free pass.
Why is that?
If you’re concerned about the environmental and safety hazards posed by the Mayor’s refusal to enforce basic city codes, please join us at Protect Culver City.