Volunteers turn out for townwide cleanup

About 200 people took to the streets of Riverhead Town Saturday for the spring clean-up organized by the Riverhead Anti-Litter Committee.

Volunteers were provided safety vests, gloves, bags and pickers and fanned out across town to clean up more than 35 different roads. Parks and beaches designated by the committee as most in need of clean-up.

Plastic trash bags filled with litter were left along the side of the roads for pickup by the highway department Monday, said Councilwoman Catherine Kent, the town board liaison to the committee.

“People really turned out today to help beautify our town,” Kent said Saturday.

Many of the concerned citizens who helped in the effort regularly clean up their own streets, Anti-Litter Committee chairperson Deborah Wetzel told the Riverhead Town Board at its work session Thursday.

“It’s really gratifying to me that so many people are concerned about the problem of litter,” she said.

Wetzel said her goal is to have regular townwide cleanup days. ShopRite, Target and Lowe’s donated gloves, bags and pickers, she said, but the committee needs financial support from the town to purchase some of the supplies needed in the cleanup effort.

The committee is also asking for the town’s support to enforce the law, Wetzel said.

Wetzel said town code provisions require shopping center owners to keep their premises, including parking lots and landscaped areas, clean. But too many of these spaces around Riverhead are not in compliance, she said.

“It’s really sad to see so much litter. I drive around my town and I just shake my head,” Wetzel said. The litter-strewn business premises “negatively impacts our town’s image,” she said.

Wetzel asked the town board to step-up enforcement of the code. She asked for a liaison in code enforcement.

Supervisor Yvette Aguiar said she will “make sure that happens.”

Aguiar said the public can report illegal conditions to the code enforcement division.

Kent said the town needs to “take a hard line” on businesses that violate the code with respect to keeping their premises clean.

Code Enforcement Richard Downs said when his office gets a complaint about litter, they send out a notice of complaint and after five days, a code enforcement officer goes out to inspect the site.

The officer will talk to a store manager, but often they say the tenant is not responsible for cleanup, so code enforcement will write a ticket to the owner of the property.

“We’re not going to get into the battle of who’s supposed to do what, as per their lease agreement,” Downs said.

The company issued a ticket is required to respond to Riverhead Justice Court, Downs said.

Downs said he would look at the fines provided in the code, which he said should perhaps be increased.

“The fines are pretty low here in Riverhead compared to other townships,” Aguiar said. “Myself and the councilman have reviewed them extensively, and they’re actually about half in certain municipalities,” she said. “And again, get the word out, let’s hit them in the pockets, and things will change and that’s usually the normal course.”