TRENTON, Ga. – Trenton residents, particularly apartment renters, may be getting a quieter night’s sleep in the new year.
City Commissioner Tommy Lawson has drafted an ordinance that would, as presently written, “establish hours for commercial operations in residential zoned areas.”
The big offenders, he said, are large garbage bin operations.
“It’s the big Dumpsters they put in all around the city; some of them are in residential areas where the apartments are,” Lawson said.
“They’ll come in there at two or three o’clock in the morning, wake up everybody around there.”
Lawson said he has received “numerous complaints” over the issue.
As currently written, the ordinance would limit garbage pickup to the hours between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.
“We’ve tried to get them to reschedule it, but they won’t do it,” he said. “The only thing we know to do is to make an ordinance where it will be illegal for them to do it.
The ordinance includes penalties, including fines of up to $500. It states that each day of violation “shall constitute a new and separate violation.”
Any such ordinance would not affect private individuals, he said, such as someone working on a project at home after hours.
” It’s got to be commercial; a private individual working, that’s a different issue,” said Lawson.
Calls to three Trenton apartment complexes were not returned, although an unidentified person answering the phone for a fourth said they have “received no complaints” over garbage pickup noise.
Mike owns United Garbage Service in Dade County, but he said he doesn’t have any garbage bins in Trenton. But he understands why the haulers might work at night.
“People in the daytime park to where they can’t get to them,” Casey said.
Lawson has handed over the proposed ordinance to the city attorney to “put all the right words in there to control this.”
A final version will be presented to the commission at the January meeting.
Mike Chambers covers Dade County. Contact him at chambers@tvn.net