Calling it a “sledgehammer approach to killing a fly,” Vice Mayor John Martinez was among the majority of Sedona City Council members opposed to pursuing an ordinance regarding garbage cans. The city of Sedona currently has no ordinance regarding trash cans being left at the curb for extended periods of time — prior to and/or after regularly scheduled pickups. 

Since the majority of council on Tuesday, March 12, was not in favor of one, an ordinance will not move forward. 

Assistant City Manager and Community Development Director Karen Osburn said that, when complaints are received, code enforcement officers have considered the cans outside storage or, if applicable, abandoned property left in the city right-of-way. In this case, they typically leave a door hanger on the can asking that it be brought in, which usually resolves the problem. 

Osburn said code enforcement receives very few complaints regarding unattended trash cans — an estimated five over the last several years. In fact, so few that it doesn’t even have its own category but is rather listed under miscellaneous by code enforcement officers.

Councilman Scott Jablow raised the issue of a possible ordinance in January and, since then, Councilmen John Currivan and Bill Chisholm have expressed interest in this topic. “You said in the materials that there’s no section covering it,” Currivan said to Osburn. 

“I’m wondering whether perhaps this explains why you don’t get many code enforcement complaints. How can people make a code enforcement complaint for something that doesn’t violate the code?”

To that Osburn said, “I think you are correct in that it is difficult for code enforcement to go out and tell someone ‘you have to remove your trash can’ if we don’t have a rule to point to. But the fact that we don’t regulate something definitely does not keep people from contacting code enforcement and complaining about things. So we get complaints about things where we go out and it’s not actually a violation because we don’t have a rule and people assume that we might.” 

Osburn added that in the upcoming months staff will be presenting options related to a new property maintenance code to address issues like this that are not currently regulated by the city. In her report, Osburn listed current trash can ordinances for Flagstaff, Scottsdale, Phoenix, Clarkdale, Prescott, Tempe and Glendale. Each has rules in place as to how far in advance cans can be placed curbside, as well as when they must be taken in. 

However, she pointed out that, in these cases the cities have their own trash service or contract with one provider. Sedona has three providers that come on different days of the week, adding to an enforcement conundrum. While most homeowners associations have rules in place regarding trash cans, those neighborhoods that aren’t in a HOA are some of the ones seeing this problem, Jablow said. This includes his own. 

While he said the biggest culprits are short-term vacation rentals, full-time residents are contributing to this as well. Jablow said he doesn’t want to be heavy-handed but rather give the city the tools to enforce this issue when needed, 

“I think it’s getting worse,” Jablow said. “I shouldn’t be able to drive down the street and see all these cans on a Friday. The last pick-up day in the entire city is Wednesday. If you ever drive down the street and see a trash can on a Thursday or Friday — it’s just left there.” 

Following up on Osburn’s comments, Martinez said there is no issue in Sedona too small that citizens won’t complain about. But trash can complaints are not ones they hear about. He said what concerns him is that, in order to enforce a potential ordinance, the city would have to hire additional code enforcement officers. Instead, he’d rather see more public awareness as opposed to enforcement. 

His other concern is that he feels this ordinance would be targeted at the short-term rentals. Because of potential state violations in doing so, he said he cannot support an ordinance. 

“That is really what I believe is the underlying theme of what we’re trying to do here,” he said. To that, Jablow, Currivan and Chisholm said that it’s not their intention to target just short-term vacation rentals and their owners. 

“I’m not saying this is an AirBNB issue — just to be crystal clear,” Chisholm said. “But there are neighbors that are not playing ball.”