The city of Canton is being overwhelmed by a literally growing problem — property owners who won’t use a lawnmower.
The city now cuts grass and weeds on more than 2,000 thousand privately-owned lots at a cost of a quarter million dollars a year.
Foreclosures are a big part of the problem. But most of the lots are owned by Canton residents.
Health Department officials are worried about creating hiding places for rats and breeding grounds for ticks.
If I were to pick a state likely to do this, Ohio would be it.
If you allow your tags to lapse in Ohio, and your neighbor knows and calls it in, the police will break into your locked garage, tow the car and have it crushed with all its contents. They will not tell you to get your tags renewed. They will tell you who called. It’s that kind of place.
Canton city workers or contractors must not be unionized. Where else can you get your grass cut for twelve and a half cents?
This law would be the coup de grass to democracy. 😉
….. OTOH, weed be better off if we had law’n order and no mower of these rye remarks.
#4 Gordian
…..Knot!!!!
#1 Examples or links to articles? Ohio may be on the path to police state status, but I’ve been pulled over in Ohio for expired tags and merely got the ticket.
Yeah, I don’t buy #1’s comment either. Sounds like an urban myth to me.
Call it “A Taste of Singapore.”
But you know what, I’d much rather live with this law than get TICKS, just as I’d much rather live with Singapore-style mosquito-control than get malaria. (My hat is off to any hot, humid equatorial city that can eradicate mosquitos.)
The jail aspect of the Canton law is peculiar. Other U.S. cities that get tough on neglecting one’s property slap a lien on the property for clean-up costs and threaten to sell it if the owner doesn’t pay. That usually does the job. But perhaps Canton already has too much city-owned land.
I say it’s about time! Let those scofflaws suffer! There’s nothing more criminal under the sun than an unmowed lawn.
In the immortal words of Chrissie Hynde: Hey, Oh, way to go Ohio …
Remember that cracking down on “quality of life” violations was key to the Giuliani program for restoring public order in New York City. Some experts even refer to “fixing broken windows” (e.g., in schools) as a hallmark of that approach.
Hmm. Me I plan to grow winter wheat on my back lawn. It is nice and green in winter and a food crop to boot, that one can make bread with. Good thing that I have a privacy fence. But an even better thing that I don’t live in Ohio.
As for the Midwest: Some kin temporarily living in Milwaukee lived on a tree-lined back street with two traffic lanes and two parking lanes. Except that you weren’t supposed to park your car on the street. Go figure.
I can’t imagine that No. 1’s scenario is possibly correct. I mean, Federal protection prohibits unreasonable search and seizure. Cops have to have either probably cause or a search warrant to break into a home. I can’t imagine what judge would grant either on the hearsay of a neighbor’s word that so-and-so’s license plate is expired.
#12 Irenaeus,
That’s because in Milwaukee the parking lanes are for snow and garbage removal. Both of which happen 7 days a week, 52 weeks per year.
As for the Canton lawn mowing jail thing, if I’m in jail because I didn’t mow my lawn who is going to mow my lawn? How does one ever get out of jail? Because then it will start snowing and I won’t be there to shovel my walk either.
If you mowed round the edges and let it grow in the middle, would that make it Ohio?
Gordian,
Can you please stop dispensing with the punishment? After all, there is nothing verse about your comments.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Here in NJ our view of anyone who fails to honor the civic contract to keep mowed and tidy their small portion of the great common suburban greenswad is that they deserve death. My own sainted mother, speaking of a person who planted bamboo on a portion of their lot, once said “they should be shot.” We take these things seriously. 🙂
“In Milwaukee the parking lanes are for snow and garbage removal. Both of which happen 7 days a week, 52 weeks per year”
—Mike S [#14]
Wow, snow—and snow removal—“7 days a week, 52 weeks per year”!
They don’t mess around in Milwaukee.
#17, I can believe it. A friend of mine who moved to NJ was shocked when she received an official warning from the local government when she painted the door to her detached garage (in compliance with an earlier citation) a shade of white which was not on the approved list. And this a door which can only be seen from her property. A case of an overzealous and underworked official, she reckons.
#16: I don’t know what to say! Your cutting remarks make me reel. Are you telling me to go to grass? Well, I won’t hover here any longer. I’ve had my Phil of this! I’ve never had a Snyder comment before! Why be icy, YBIC? 🙂
(time now to get on Silver, the Lawn Ranger. Heigh Ho!)