BIDS caught in New York’s War on Rats, face fines for overflowing trash

NEW YORK (PIX11) — Some of New York City’s Business Improvement Districts say they are an unintended causality of the War on Rats. The BIDS helps maintain many of the garbage cans you see on city street corners.

Laura Rothrock, the President of the Long Island City Business Improvement District, tells PIX11 News “If the trash cans are overflowing, we will tie up the bag and leave it next to the can for Sanitation to pick up. What Sanitation is telling us now; is we will be fined for any bags of public trash that are left next to the public container.”

Rothrock also says the BIDS don’t have the money to buy new, larger containers to hold the garbage when it’s full. She said, “Our budgets are capped by legislation, so we can’t even increase our total budgets if we wanted to.”

Albert Dalipi, a Deputy Director of the Fordham Road Business Improvement District, tells PIX11 News “We’re not necessarily opposed to containerization if we had funding for it, the problem is we don’t have funding for it.”

Joshua Goodman, a Deputy Commissioner with the Department of Sanitation tells PIX11 News “No one is saying the BIDS will be fined for random bags of trash” placed next to the public cans. Goodman said “If BID leaves a bag on the corner, and we observe it, there could be a fine. If we don’t observe it, there will be no fine.”

Goodman said that no new rule has officially been proposed, but that there are discussions with the BIDS about how to roll out this next phase of the containerization plan. A draft proposal is expected by the end of the year, with fines for violations not starting before August 2025.