1. MEETING NOTES page 1 of 2
Location: Dallas City Hall
Date: April 5, 2011
Prepared by: Nigel Brown
Subject: Briefing on Livability in The Cedars
Refer to the Agenda (attached) for an outline of the meeting.
Michael Barrett presented “From Eyesores to Assets” (attached) regarding efforts in
other U.S. cities to address vacant properties. Pauline Medrano noted that many
vacant properties are held by long-term owners who are holding them for
speculation. Many have violations for Code, weeds and trash. She referenced the
book “Eden’s Lost and Found” which addresses efforts to clean up vacant
properties. The suggested strategy is to start with a small area and expand in
phases. Pame la Ashford is the umbrella coordinator for this effort.
Michael Przekwas presented results of his recent survey regarding quality of life in
The Cedars (attached). The report includes a map of DPD reporting areas within
the neighborhood. The issues with the most responses include loitering, litter and
truck traffic. Deputy Chief Genovese asked that any reports of truck traffic include
the time of day and the day of the week in addition to the location. Michael
Przekwas discussed the concept of identifying a “captain” for each reporting area.
Some areas in the southwest are predominantly business occupancies and would
need businesses to participate. Pauline Medrano pointed out that these areas are
adjacent to the Trinity River, including bike trails and the “standing wave”. These
areas will attract increasing traffic along Riverfront and Corinth.
Pauline Medrano and Michael Przekwas commented on prompt response from
Oncor regarding repair of streetlights.
Michael Barrett spoke about the upcoming neighborhood litter clean-up. Pauline
Medrano advised that the City has a list of volunteer organizations that are looking
for opportunities to participate. She will ask Forest Turner to provide a contact. In
addition, Keep Dallas Beautiful will provide supplies for the clean-up.
Michael Barrett commended the DPD for their strong response to reported crime in
the Ervay Street corridor. He asked about whether this level of enforcement is
sustainable. Deputy Chief Genovese said that this level of enforcement can be
maintained.
Michael Barrett discussed the concept of using electronic funds transfer instead of
cash to pay day-labor workers. Pauline Medrano expressed concern for the
workers who are being preyed upon because they leave work with cash in their
pockets. Is legislation possible? Attorneys will want to know whether this has
been done in other cities as a precedent.

2. MEETING NOTES page 2 of 2
Lt. King presented a summary of recent police efforts. These include approaching
loiterers and frequent drive-bys with a paddy wagon. Recent arrests are
predominantly drug paraphernalia, shopping carts and public intoxication. Very
few traffic(vehicle) issues. They have also been moving trucks off Cesar Chavez
for overnight parking. Need to engage owners of apartments south of Dallas
Heritage Village. Pauline Medrano suggested using sky towers on an intermittent
basis for visibility. DART has recently installed cameras at the Cedars light-rail
station.
Michael Barrett discussed the possibility of a Styrofoam ordinance. This has been
done in other cities (see Freeport, Maine attached). Also discussed that there are
feeding services at multiple locations in the neighborhood, causing a stream of
people moving from one location to the next. Discussed the need for feeding
organizations to clean up after themselves. There are also several sites handing
out clothing that gets discarded along the roadsides. Discussed the possibility of
using video for monitoring and reporting violations.

3. Councilmember Pauline Medrano, DPD and Cedars Neighborhood Association Meeting
Tuesday April 5th, 2011 3 - 4pm, Dallas City Hall - 5EN
Special Thanks to Deputy Chief Genovesi, Deputy Chief Golbeck, Lt King, Sargent Bynum, and
Officer Owens
.
1. DCAD Demographic information
 241 Business
 258 Houses, Townhomes and Condo owner’s
 Coming soon – MSW -165 Affordable housing units
 474 Vacant lots – Case Studies
http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/146/researchupdate.html
2. Cedars Neighborhood Association Quality of Life Survey Results
 Litter
 Loitering
 Drug activity
 Code violations
 Graffiti
3. Cedars Quality of Life Initiatives
Completed
 Review and submit Street Light needs – 3/9/11
 Vacant Lot review – 3/8/22
 Loving My Community Project plan -3/31/11
 VIP Training – 3/8/11
 QOL survey – 3/15/11
Upcoming
 Graffiti Wipe out – May 2011
 Neighborhood Clean-up May 2011
 Reporting trash and code violation – On-going
 www.cnadallas.com website refresh
4. Sustainability of existing police support
 DPD long term focus on Cedars Hot spots
o Areas with statistically high number of offenses
o Movement patterns-Ervay, Harwood
 Funding
.
5. City Attorney's office - LEGISLATION possibilities:
 Day Labor Agencies Legislation
i. Place workers on a direct deposit program
1. Wal-Mart has installed a special banking program called Second Chances for
instance - and it is teaching people that have never had a bank account before,
how to do so.
ii. Or an EFT debit card system
iii. Or a daily payroll service.
iv. Plus legislation stating cash checking stores would not be allowed within a few thousand
feet of a day labor agency
 Styrofoam Ordinance
6. Next Steps

4. Issue #146, Summer 2006 - From Eyesores to Assets - CDC Abandoned Property Strategies
By Alan Mallach
Anticipating Change
As Pat Morrissy, executive director of Housing and Neighborhood Development Services, Inc. (HANDS), a
community development corporation in Orange, New Jersey, tells people, vacant lots and abandoned
buildings “can suck the life out of a neighborhood.” They impair the health of neighborhood residents,
encourage criminal activity and raise the risk of fires. They reduce property values and make already
struggling neighborhoods less appealing to prospective homebuyers who can choose where they live. Of
all the physical factors blighting the lives of inner-city residents, abandoned properties may be the single
most destructive, because they affect so many other conditions, making these other challenging
problems that much worse.
Because vacant properties have such an impact, a strategy that focuses on them can transform an entire
neighborhood, building the opportunity to create vibrant, economically diverse communities. As a
result, as CDCs have looked at conditions in their neighborhoods and worked with residents to frame
rebuilding strategies, vacant and abandoned properties have increasingly become a major part of their
efforts. As Morrissy says, “to save a neighborhood that’s in danger of going down, you can’t simply add
new homes. You have to put the process of decline in reverse.”
Vacant Lots
In the late 1990s, residents of Southwest Baltimore came together to plan for the revitalization of their
community, a neighborhood of 20,000 residents west of the city’s downtown. One of their first concerns
was the number of overgrown vacant lots riddled with trash and debris throughout the neighborhood.
“They were the first thing people saw when they came into the neighborhood,” recalls Zach Holl,
program director for the Bon Secours of Maryland Foundation, which spearheaded the effort. “Ten
percent of the neighborhood was vacant lots, and they looked like hell.” For a community determined to
rebuild its housing market and attract a diverse population, these lots, created as abandoned houses
were torn down, were a major obstacle.
The result was an innovative Open Space Management Program, bringing together community and
outside partners to turn the neighborhood’s vacant lots from a neighborhood eyesore into a community
asset. In the first year, they turned 185 vacant lots into attractive, well-maintained open spaces, while
acquiring an additional 40 lots for reuse for side yards and other purposes. Bon Secours enlisted a wide
range of partner organizations – including Civic Works, a nonprofit youth service organization, which
carried out site improvements and major maintenance; the Community Law Center, which provided
legal assistance; and the Neighborhood Design Center, which helped with lot design and selection of
plant materials. Although the City of Baltimore was initially skeptical about the effort, they soon realized

5. its value and provided a variety of helpful support services to Operation ReachOut SouthWest (OROSW),
the community’s umbrella organization.
For the program’s organizers, this was about more than just vacant lots. It was about market building
and community pride. After the program had gotten off the ground with staff involvement, the
community became more engaged. From the beginning, OROSW has sponsored “Clean and Green”
competitions, where neighborhood residents form teams that take responsibility for at least five lots
and compete for valuable awards that are handed out each year at a banquet and award ceremony.
As cities move aggressively to demolish abandoned buildings, more and more vacant lots are created,
often replacing one problem with another. In 1975, Philadelphia contained 30,000 abandoned buildings
and only 6,000 vacant lots; by 2001, it still had roughly 30,000 abandoned buildings, but over 30,000
vacant lots. As fast as buildings were being torn down, more were being abandoned, while the lots were
gathering trash and debris. One organization that decided to do something about it was the New
Kensington CDC (NKCDC), an organization serving a cluster of distressed neighborhoods – Kensington,
Fishtown and Port Richmond – northeast of Center City. By 1995, this one area contained over 1,100
vacant lots, ranging from postage stamp lots to abandoned one-time industrial tracts.
As in Southwest Baltimore, the CDC realized that these lots were not only health and safety hazards,
they discouraged nearby owners from fixing up their properties and prompted anyone who could afford
the move to leave the neighborhood. In 1996, the CDC started its Vacant Land Management program,
with technical support from the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and a combination of CDBG and
foundation funds.
By 2004, NKCDC had reclaimed over 600 of the vacant parcels, stabilizing them, planting trees and
selling 200 to homeowners as side yards. Consolidating lots into larger parcels, NKCDC also created a
community garden center on a high-profile site on Frankford Avenue, the neighborhood’s main street,
and worked with Greensgrow Farms, a community agriculture organization, to create a three-quarter
acre urban farm on the site of an abandoned galvanized steel plant, which today supplies fresh produce
to many of Philadelphia’s most exclusive restaurants.
After 10 years, the CDC’s efforts have had a dramatic effect on the community. “The program has made
a tremendous physical impact,” says NKCDC executive director Sandy Salzman. “With the increasing
amount of clean and green spaces – replacing what were once trashed vacant lots – people no longer
feel threatened by their surroundings.” A recent study by the Wharton School at the University of
Pennsylvania found that while being next to a vacant lot reduces property values, being next to a lot
that NKCDC had cleaned, landscaped and stabilized led to a long-term increase of 30 percent compared
to other properties in the area. Now, after decades of being neglected, Kensington and Fishtown are
being “discovered.”

6. Abandoned Houses
Operation ReachOut SouthWest wasn’t the only Baltimore organization that saw vacant properties as
both problem and solution. In 1995, a new CDC had just been set up across town in Patterson Park, a
badly disinvested neighborhood ravaged by crime and drugs. Fewer and fewer homeowners were
interested in buying in the area, and properties were being rented out or bought by slumlords who
would milk the property for a few years and then walk away. Homeownership rates were dropping, and
in parts of the neighborhood one out of four homes stood vacant and abandoned. In the heart of the
neighborhood, the once-magnificent 19th century Patterson Park had so deteriorated that many of the
neighborhood’s residents never entered it.
Patterson Park CDC (PPCDC) set out to gain control of the vacant houses in the neighborhood,
rehabilitate them to a high standard, sell some and rent others. Most houses were sold at market rates,
while rental units were offered at below-market levels, reflecting the CDC’s goal of creating an
economically and socially diverse community of choice. By 2002, PPCDC had already rehabbed 261
homes, of which they had sold 120 and rented out 141. By that year, PPCDC was selling its houses for
nearly $120,000, or almost three times the $45,000 they commanded in 1997. By the spring of 2006, the
CDC was listing one of its houses for $399,000. PPCDC was also a key player in the restoration of the
park, which has since become a major neighborhood asset.
Vacant, abandoned properties have also been the focus of HANDS’ efforts, in Orange, New Jersey. By
the 1980s Orange, an older working-class suburb of Newark, was in bad shape. Property values were
down, crime was up and abandoned properties were commonplace, destabilizing many blocks. With
nearly 300 abandoned houses scattered around this small city of little more than two square miles, few
neighborhoods were immune to their destructive effect.
HANDS had begun building and rehabilitating scattered affordable housing for first-time homebuyers in
1985, but after 10 years they realized that something critical was missing. In 1996, they adopted a new
approach focusing directly on the city’s abandoned houses; in Morrissy’s words, to “take the biggest
eyesore on a block where…the neighbors don’t even want to walk past…take it, get control of it…and
transform it into a house that sends a positive message about what’s going on in the neighborhood.”
HANDS prepared an inventory of Orange’s problem properties and systematically set out to gain control
of them, tracking down property owners and lienholders across the United States, buying tax liens and
foreclosing, clearing title. Using a mixture of public and private funds, HANDS rehabilitated the
properties, sold them to first-time homebuyers and put them back on the tax rolls.
The results have been dramatic. By 2005, the number of abandoned houses in Orange had dropped to
barely 70 properties, of which Morrissy says, “only a dozen of these are real hard core.” Meanwhile,
between 2000 and 2004, the average sales price in Orange increased by 50 percent, from $118,000 to
$178,000. HANDS, in fact, has begun to shift gears, taking on a comprehensive revitalization strategy for
the city’s Valley neighborhood, which will include a large-scale mixed-use redevelopment of a cluster of
former hat factories in partnership with two for-profit developers.

7. Neither Patterson Park CDC nor HANDS limited themselves to city-owned properties, or waited for
properties to be offered them, either by the city or by private owners. Perhaps the most critical single
element in the success of their efforts was that both CDCs made the same entrepreneurial decision: to
move aggressively to acquire properties, using whatever financial resources, legal and negotiating tools
that were available. Both organizations took risks, taking control of properties that they might not be
able to use immediately, and banking properties for future reuse. While they partnered with city
government, they did not allow the city to dictate either the scope or the pace of their efforts. They
recognized a fundamental reality – without control of properties, one cannot control the future of the
community.
Lessons for CDCs
The experience of the four CDCs described here, along with others around the country, demonstrates
clearly that a strategy that prioritizes vacant properties – either vacant lots or abandoned houses – can
be an effective means of bringing neighborhoods back, restoring residents’ faith in their community and
turning around long-term decline in property values. Besides the importance of gaining control of
properties, other key lessons include:
Vacant properties must be a priority. While no CDC is likely to focus exclusively on vacant properties, a
vacant property strategy demands that it be a priority for the organization; that it be a steady, ongoing
effort; and that tracking the status of vacant properties in the neighborhood be a constant, rather than
intermittent, task.
Scale is critical. The nature of abandoned properties is that every one is a problem, and that scattered,
haphazard efforts are not valuable. NKCDC may not have cleaned up every one of the 1,100 vacant lots
in the neighborhood, but they transformed over 600 of them. Patterson Park CDC reclaimed nearly 300
houses in less than eight years. While a long-term strategy is critical, without the ability to go to scale –
and do so relatively quickly – a CDC will not be able to get ahead of the problem and generate
productive long-term results.
A long-term commitment is needed. Even once the CDC is operating at scale, dealing with vacant
properties can be a slow process, especially, as in Orange, where the heart of the strategy called for
getting control of buildings from irresponsible private owners. The effects of the strategy are also
gradual, and only visible after years of effort. HANDS, Patterson Park and New Kensington have all been
pursuing their vacant property strategies for 10 or more years.
Vacant property strategies require specialized expertise. The expertise required will vary depending on
the type of properties and the strategy being pursued. HANDS needed to recruit expertise in arcane
areas of property law such as tax foreclosure, while Bon Secours needed both legal and design expertise

8. for its Southwest Baltimore strategy. Without the guidance of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society,
NKCDC would have had a far harder time putting together its vacant land management program.
The strategy must be tied to other community building efforts. None of these CDCs does only vacant
properties. The open space program in Southwest Baltimore is part of a comprehensive revitalization
strategy incorporating many different programs and activities. NKCDC and HANDS run homebuyer
counseling and assistance programs, and Patterson Park CDC’s activities include organizing park
programs and providing services to new immigrants. All of these efforts are coordinated with the vacant
property strategy; HANDS and PPCDC use their homebuyer counseling programs to funnel buyers into
the vacant houses they restore, while OROSW and NKCDC both use their open space or vacant lot
programs as ways to build resident engagement and community cohesion.
The most important lesson, however, is that abandoned property strategies work. Far more than many
alternative CDC activities, including affordable housing construction, such strategies go directly to the
heart of why the housing market in an area is not functioning effectively, and why the neighborhood’s
problems seem so intractable. They are not easy, and not for the faint-hearted, but abandoned property
strategies have the potential to be transformative strategies for the revitalization of distressed inner-city
neighborhoods.
Copyright 2006
Alan Mallach is research director for the National Housing Institute. His latest book is Bringing Buildings
Back: From Abandoned Properties to Community Assets.
Anticipating Change
Just as vacant, abandoned properties act as a drag on property values, an effective strategy that
eliminates them or – as in Southwest Baltimore or Kensington – neutralizes their negative effects, can
become a spur to increase property values. Where the location of the neighborhood is conducive to
higher property values, the increase can be dramatic. Both Patterson Park and Kensington are located
relatively close to areas that had begun to gentrify in the 1990s, while Orange is located in the heart of
the New York metropolitan area, with commuter rail access to Newark and New York City.
These neighborhoods have changed dramatically in the past few years. Where vacant houses might once
sit abandoned in Orange neighborhoods for years or decades, today – except for a handful with
intractable legal or title problems – investors and speculators move quickly to snap up vacant
properties, fixing them up and reselling or renting them out. In Patterson Park, houses that might not
have found a buyer at any price 10 years ago are selling for more than $300,000.

9. This is both good and bad. A stronger market can mean a healthier neighborhood, where economically
diverse homebuyers choose to buy and where upwardly mobile families choose to stay. At the same
time it creates increasing pressure on the area’s lower-income families and individuals who previously
found the neighborhood an affordable place to live. CDCs should anticipate that, over time, a rising
market may force many of those families out of their community, through higher property taxes on
homeowners, rent increases or displacement, as existing buildings are converted to homeownership or
demolished for more profitable uses. Markets are powerful forces and can easily preempt the CDC’s
goal of building an economically diverse community. Once they take hold, there may be little a CDC can
do to preserve affordability and maintain diversity.
A CDC in an impoverished, struggling neighborhood pockmarked by vacant lots and abandoned houses
may find it difficult even to imagine the possibility that, within a few years, demand might increase to
the point where competition for the neighborhood’s houses may become a problem. Yet that is
precisely what is required. Each organization contemplating a vacant property strategy – or indeed any
comprehensive revitalization effort – must ask itself how it will deal with market pressures, if and when
those pressures arise. Only by anticipating change, and building strategies to hold onto affordable
housing, can a CDC create the conditions in which an economically diverse population is a sustainable
reality for a neighborhood, rather than a transitional state between an impoverished neighborhood and
an affluent one.
– A.M.
Research Notes
• Bringing Buildings Back, the first comprehensive guide to abandoned property, is now available. It
contains a wealth of good practices, like those described in this issue’s Research Update, and provides
strategies for prevention, management and the reuse of such property.
• Shared Equity Homeownership: The Changing Landscape of Resale-Restricted, Owner-Occupied
Housing will be available on nhi.org later in 2006. This report examines the role of third-sector housing –
inclusionary units, limited-equity coops and community land trusts – in providing an affordable form of
homeownership for millions of Americans whose incomes are between 30 percent and 120 percent of
local area median income.

10. Cedars Neighborhood 2011 Crime Survey
As part of the new crime / quality of life committee, we are exploring block captain scenarios. Please
review neighborhood regions map to selection your region.
Region 1 21%
Region 2 16%
Region 3 5%
Region 4 9%
Region 5 32%
Region 6 2%
Region 7 0%
Region 8 2%
Region 9 13%

11. Please check the space that best describes the type of crime(s) concerns occuring in your community.
Burglary (Residential/Business) 31 57%
Theft (BMV) 36 67%
Auto Theft 13 24%
Disturbance (Disorderly Conduct,
Loud Music) 35 65%
Drugs/Drug Location 39 72%
Loitering 46 85%
Vacant houses (Code Violation/
Squatters) 29 54%
Speeding 15 28%
Gunfire (Shooting) 8 15%
Gambling 3 6%
Criminal Mischief 19 35%
Motel (Criminal Activity) 9 17%
Prostitution (male) 18 33%
Prostitution (female) 18 33%
None 0 0%
Other 8 15%
People may select more than one checkbox,
so percentages may add up to more than 100%.

12. Do you feel you have adequate
police patrol in your area?
Yes 18 32%
No 32 57%
Is there a good relation be-
tween your community and
Police Department?
Yes 48 86%
No 7 13%
Do you know the Neighbor-
hood Police Office (NPO) for
your area?
Yes 24 43%
No 31 55%
Do you belong to a Crime
Watch Group or Neighbor-
hood Association?
Yes 40 71%
No 16 29%

13. Do you have a contact person
within the Dallas Police De-
partment?
Yes 32 57%
No 24 43%
When was the last time you spoke or
met with an officer?
None 8 14%
1-3 month 29 52%
4-6 month 5 9%
7-9 month 5 9%
Over a year 2 4%
Other 7 13%
What type of contact did you have with
police if any? (Check as man as apply)
None 8 15%
Reporting a neighborhood
disturbance 24 45%
Victim of crime (example;
burglary, theft, assault) 8 15%
Witness a crime 10 19%
Trafic Violation 2 4%
Other 22 42%

14. Please describe your contact with police in your neighbrohood if any?
None 4 7%
Courteous 47 84%
Rude 1 2%
Indifferent 4 7%
Please rate the police response time in your communit
None 3 5%
Good 15 27%
Satisfactory 27 48%
Poor 8 14%
Apartment 3 5%
House 8 14%
Business 4 7%
Townhome 15 27%
Condo 15 27%
Other 11 20%

15. Age Group
17-19 0 0%
20-29 4 7%
30-49 31 55%
50-64 20 36%
65+ 1 2%
Other 0 0%
Male 35 63%
Female 21 38%
Single 23 41%
Married 27 48%
Children 0 0%
Other 6 11%

16. Truancy 5 11%
Gang Activity 9 19%
Juvenile Issues Curfew Violations 6 13%
Graffiti 34 72%
None 9 19%
Other 6 13%
People may select more than one checkbox, so
percentages may add up to more than 100%.
Please rank additional neigh- Litter 45 92%
borhood concerns Code violations 34 69%
Encampments 37 76%
18-wheeler / Truck traffic
(i.e. parking on empty lots) 28 57%
Other 8 16%
People may select more than one checkbox, so
percentages may add up to more than 100%.

18. CHAPTER 33 STYROFOAM ORDINANCE
Whereas, the Council finds that:
1. Located in Maine on the shore of the North Atlantic Ocean, an
area known world-wide for its natural beauty, fish and other
wildlife, the Town of Freeport believes that it has an obligation
to maintain and preserve its special natural environment;
2. Maintenance of Freeport as litter-free as possible is important
to protect and preserve its natural environment and enhance its
quality of life for residents and visitors;
3. The United Nations Environmental Programme Diplomatic Conference
in Montreal (Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the
Ozone Layer) acknowledged the threat of chlorofluorocarbons to
the earth's atmosphere and established international goals for
the phased reduction of the manufacture and use of specific
chlorofluorocarbon compounds ("CFC's"). The Town of Freeport
supports international and federal efforts to reduce the
non-essential use of chlorofluorocarbons.;
4. The Federal Environmental Protection Agency reports that foam
products account for 28% of ozone-depleting potential of CFC's.
Blowing agents used in the production of non-CFC PSF's create
hazardous earth-level smog;
5. The Federal Environmental Protection Agency has issued a national
municipal waste strategy calling for a 25 percent reduction in
solid waste by 1992. The strategy, titled "The Solid Waste
Dilemma: An Agenda for Action", includes the promotion of
recycling. The State of Maine is considering how to implement
this strategy;
6. The State of Maine has banned the service of food and beverages
in polystyrene foam containers at facilities or functions of the
State or its political subdivisions effective January 1, 1990
(38 MRSA Section 1651 et seq.);
7. Readily disposable consumer plastic containers and wrappers
(including those made from polystyrene foam) are essentially not
biodegradable and as litter do not decompose over time into the
natural environment;
8. The use of readily disposable consumer plastic containers and
wrappers has increased annually and projections indicate a
significant growth in their use;
9. Plastic litter, particularly polystyrene foam, poses a threat to
the natural environment, including fish and other wildlife;
-1-

19. 10. This Ordinance will serve the public interest by reducing the
amount of non-biodegradable waste littering Freeport as a portion
of any substitute packaging is expected to be composed of
biodegradable material in whole or in part. Polystyrene foam
litter is highly durable, buoyant, and non-biodegradable and,
therefore, persists and detracts from the appearance of the area
longer than many other types of litter;
11. At the present time there is no Recycling Program in Freeport for
polystyrene foam food or beverage containers;
12. Some other commonly used food packaging materials are also
non-biodegradable and contribute to litter problems;
nevertheless, the Council finds that it is appropriate to
regulate polystyrene foam food packaging while not regulating
other types of food packaging at this time for the following
reasons:
A. To minimize disruption in the food services and sales
industry, the Council should avoid banning a wide range of
packaging materials at one time. It might be appropriate to
ban other packaging materials in the future, but an
incremental approach to eliminating undesirable packaging
materials will cause less disruption and allow the Town to
handle enforcement in more manageable stages;
B. Polystyrene foam is the most commonly used non-reuseable
food packaging material for prepared foods in restaurants
and food service establishments in Freeport and, therefore,
prohibiting its use for such purpose and its sale at retail
will be the most effective way of reducing non-biodegradable
litter in Freeport;
C. Ingestion of polystyrene foam particles has been identified
as a hazard to wildlife, while this problem has not been
associated with other food packaging materials.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT ORDERED:
1. On and after January 1, 1990, no retail food vendor shall serve
or sell prepared food and no food packager shall package meat,
eggs, bakery products or other food in polystyrene foam (PSF)
containers;
2. On and after January 1, 1990, no vendor in the Town of Freeport
who sells tangible personal property at retail shall sell
polystyrene foam food or beverage containers;
3. Violations of this Ordinance shall be punishable by fines as
follows:
A. A fine not exceeding $250 for the first violation in a
one-year period;
B. A fine not exceeding $500 for the second and each subsequent
violation in a one-year period;