Holiday shoppers won't have to search quite so hard this winter for places to legally stash their food wrappers and other trash in downtown Sault Ste. Marie.
Around this time last year, SooToday reported that all of Queenstown's trash receptacles had been removed and the only places to deposit garbage were the little pole-mounted black bins hung by Sault Transit near bus shelters.
Those bins, emptied by Sault Transit workers, were hardly bigger than the wastebaskets that office workers used to have under their desks.
"With winter on its way, face masks littering the streets and rapidly escalating concerns about downtown safety, the issue of trash removal is becoming a bone of contention between the city and Queen Street businesses," we wrote then.
This year will be a bit less trashy, thanks to lobbying of City Hall by the Downtown Association.
"The City of Sault Ste. Marie is now confirming that all of the black garbage cans that are tied to posts – that are not on the ground to serve snow removal purposes – are going to be maintained and those cans will be picked up by public works three times a week," Paul Scornaienchi from Ergo Office Plus told the most recent meeting of the Downtown Association.
Public works will also leave one larger, standalone trash receptacle on each Queenstown block, says Salvatore Marchese, the Downtown Association's executive director.
The city will also empty the larger bins three times a week, with the Downtown Association deploying its badass snowblower if too much snow accumulates around the receptacles.
Other news from the Downtown Association:
- Neeta Marwah has stepped down from her duties on the Downtown Association's board of directors
- the association has obtained approval to remove graffiti at 326 Queen St. East.
- the city has given the association permission to operate a weed wacker, but staff must be trained to avoid damage to nearby vehicles or property
- Moonlight Magic is planned for Thursday, Nov. 18 from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m.
- the Downtown Association board will be asked next week to discontinue nightly patrols by private security, and to focus instead on 'animating' the streets and encouraging people to come downtown