Folks in Long Beach will start seeing street sweeping tickets again next month.

The City Council voted unanimously at its Tuesday, April 21, meeting to begin enforcing street sweeping on May 18, the first Monday after the city’s “safer at home” order is currently set to be lifted. But, to give residents time to adjust and figure out a new parking plan, the city will begin placing flyers on cars to notify residents about the change starting May 4.

Long Beach moved to suspend street sweeping tickets on March 17 to allow flexibility for residents to stay at home to stem the further spread of the coronavirus.

But City Council members and Mayor Robert Garcia were all in agreement Tuesday that street sweeping is a vital service — not only to keep the city’s streets clean, but also to keep Long Beach’s water supply clean.

The city has tried to keep up with street sweeping without issuing citations, but Public Works Director Craig Beck said Tuesday that the task has become more and more difficult.

“One of the challenges we’ve been experiencing is that people are now not moving their cars,” he said. So he proposed the city “move back to an enforcement model so we can get back to our street sweeping program and fully meet our clean streets strategy.”

During Tuesday’s meeting, officials acknowledged that there is still a chance things could change in the next month that would require the “safer at home” order to be extended again. If that were to happen, the panel would meet again to discuss the possibility of moving back the date of street sweeping enforcement.

“If we have to change it,” Garcia said, “we’ll be back having a discussion in the future.”