VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Has Vancouver’s appearance gone downhill? A local columnist says it has, pointing to with weeds poking through pavement and unkempt properties.

Michael Geller wants the City to openly admit if it doesn’t have the money to properly maintain streets and parks or say if it’s a deliberate strategy in keeping with making Vancouver a green city.

Geller wants a public discussion on what we think is important in terms of keeping the city clean.

“Alternatively, if we really can’t afford it, then is there a role for citizens to play in volunteer capacity?” he wonders. “I know a number of neighbourhoods have neighbourhood cleanups; maybe the City could play more of a role in organizing those.”

He’d like to see more waste receptacles, particularly on the Downtown Eastside. He’s also calling for more cigarette posts, and ashtrays in areas where smokers generally go.

Geller also suggests investing in solar-powered compacting garbage cans, like ones found in Chicago.

“There are a couple of specific problems. One is chewing gum. We all know how Singapore has tried to deal with used chewing gum; it’s basically to ban chewing gum. Not because they oppose people chewing gum. They oppose the fact it invariably ends up on the sidewalks, and it costs a lot of money to clean it up,” he says.

“But a number of cities around the world have taken some innovative approaches,” he adds. “Giving people containers, sometimes with advertising on them, is one approach. The other approach is simply fining people, and it’s quite interesting. In Hong Kong, in England, in other countries, you can be fined for throwing chewing gum on the sidewalk.”

Geller says he’d like to think we can come up with a different approach, by pointing out to people it’s just not acceptable to throw your gum on the sidewalk and have other people walk over it.

He adds it isn’t just public maintenance that seems to have declined; he adds private properties also don’t seem to be cared for as well as they once were.

Downtown BIA notices less money budgeted for cleaning

Charles Gauthier, president of the Downtown Vancouver Improvement Association, says the city no longer spends the budget on cleaning like it used to. He has noticed a decline in those funds in the last 10 years.

Gauthier says businesses have been picking up the slack by doing some of the tidying themselves.

“Power-washing sidewalks, removing gum from sidewalks, trimming around the tree wells where there has been weeds,” he lists.

“Grasses grown has reached heights that are unacceptable. If we are all concerned about tax increases, then we all need to take on some additional responsibilities and take care of sweeping in front of your business or trimming weeds,” says Gauthier.

He tells us his group has worked with the City on piloting a project to place ashtrays on municipal property. The reason was two-fold: to keep butts from littering the ground and to prevent them from going down catch-basins and into our water.

Gauthier says at the end of the day, it is not just up to the government and business to keep our city sparkling; people need to take personal responsibility for their behaviour to ensure our streets are clean.