A new system of sanitation in Brooklyn requires that residents dispose of garbage on Fridays after 8:00 pm, leading to countless Yidden getting ticketed for putting out their bags before Shabbos. A grassroots effort is trying to put an end to it.
By Anash.org reporter
For over 100 years, the sanitation department required Brooklyn residents to place their garbage outside on Fridays after 4:00 pm. This timing allowed frum residents to place their garbage out before Shabbos began, which would later be picked up on Shabbos.
About a year ago, in part of the effort to clean up the streets of New York, the earliest time for putting out garbage was changed to 8:00 pm. This has put tens of thousands of Shomer Shabbos Yidden in Brooklyn at risk of being ticketed weekly.
In recent weeks, sanitation workers began in fact aggressively ticketing frum neighborhoods who put out trash before Shabbos. This new time change is discriminating against Shomrei Shabbos, and especially aggressive ticketing by the department of sanitation directly targets the frum community.
“I’ve seen sanitation workers out on erev Shabbos going around and ticketing Jewish houses,” shared one Crown Heights resident. “I approached the worker and asked him what is going on and he shared with me that the Sanitation Department is sending employees up and down the blocks with the express purpose of ticketing houses that took out the trash early. I then spoke to my business colleagues in Boro Park and they shared the same thing- that there are multiple sanitation workers out giving tickets on erev Shabbos by them too. It’s an outrage! It’s explicitly anti-Semitic and it needs to be stopped.”
NYC Councilman Kalman Yeger‘ office told a Crown Heights activist that they are receiving countless complaints in their district about this, and this is categorically the number one issue that they are hearing from the constituents in their district.
Activists from frum communities have been rallying against the time change. They have contacted all the officials responsible for and connected to the new sanitation rules, but it comes out that the ones responsible for the policy who have the authority to change it are Brooklyn’s Mayor Eric Adams and Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch.
“I reached out to the Mayor, the Mayor’s public affairs office, the Sanitation Commissioner, and Office of City Council Abreu, as well as to local council member Hudson – and received no response,” shared a dedicated Crown Heights activist with Anash.org.
“We don’t need an ‘unwritten understanding’ to not ticket in certain areas,” he explained, “because that is subject to change based on which mayor and commissioner is in office and where political winds blow. It also won’t help the frum Yidden who live in Brooklyn, outside of the close blocks of the Yiddishe neighborhoods. What we need is an actual policy change.
“If all the Yidden regardless of denomination, affiliation, and from every neighborhood join forces to tell the sanitation department, ‘You will not change precedent of a hundred years that respected Shabbos, and now make rules that disturb Shabbos R”L, then they will accommodate.”
Assembly Member Steven H. Cymbrowitz wrote to the council:
“I am writing to you with a concern regarding the proposed new rules for residential trash pickup across the city. While I applaud the goal of making our streets cleaner, the proposed new hours will be problematic for Sabbath-observant Jewish residents who have Saturday trash pickup or who are observing religious holidays throughout the year when doing work is prohibited. It would be unfair to penalize these residents for violating a civil law that they are religiously prohibited from following. I urge you to not implement these proposed new rules and to seek alternative solutions to improving cleanliness on our city’s streets.”
As of the latest, a group of activists have created a petition for Mayor Eric Adams office, requesting an immediate policy change that can be signed by residents and organizations to put pressure on the sanitation department.
We got one too. And the city council originally said that the area of Crown heights would be exempt on Fridays only
Stop with the corrupt politicians, this is a constitutional issue which belongs in court, this is something which no politician can defend and/or violate, so do it right get all the Jewish communities together and hire good lawyers and do it right. In this case probably only a threat of going to court will do the job.
Ticketing Jews for taking out garbage before the Sabbath is completely antisemitic and the policy needs to be changed immediately!
And this 8pm thing is supposed to stop the rats in this place, as if the rats wear watches…
In any case, the sanitation department always comes THE NEXT DAY to pick up the garbage. If they would come at night (when they are supposed to) there would be less rodents…
Why not get Agudath Israel involved.
interesting in Boro Park they don’t give tickets on Shabbos
In Boro Park in general, the city / gov / authorities don’t bother the Jewish community nearly as much.