Trapped in the Rat War as NYC Sanitation Department Will Replace Warnings With Tickets

 by Mindy Cohn

After writing approximately 1,000 warnings per day in its ongoing war against city rats, the NYC Sanitation Department is about to take off the gloves and issue summonses instead. 

Restaurants, delis, bodegas, and grocery stores are all expected to play their part and follow the new rules, as reported by BoroPark24 here and use a bin with a secure lid starting September 1. 

And if they don't, the NYC Sanitation Department has an idea, which they tweeted out last week, "It's time for you to ... BE A RAT!"  

"Rather than increase the rat population further, by encouraging that people "be a rat" by copying behavior that would be a perfect fit for Stalin's communist Russia," Joel R. Boro Park resident shares with BoroPark24, "Why don't they do their own dirty work? None of us want more rats - we're all working as hard as we can to eradicate this problem, and by adding human rats to the mix - it's not going to make New York a better place to live. Positive reinforcement and building trust would work a whole lot better than encouraging New Yorkers to behave like rats." 

The new rule applies to businesses ranging from restaurants to caterers, food manufacturers, food wholesalers, and retail food stores. That is 40,000 businesses or twenty percent of NYC businesses, all of which are a critical target given that most of their refuse is exactly what the scourge or rats are looking for - food!

To read the exact rules for food businesses, click here.