Trash Talk: City Calls Out Butterfield Market For UES Sidewalk Bags

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — It's not just the mayor and the public advocate who are trash-talking these days.

For the ever-popular Butterfield Market on the Upper East Side, that trash-talk is literal.

The city's Sanitation Department has been using its social media platform to call out garbage-related violations around the city, like illegal dumping, littering and, more recently, food-related and chain businesses violating a new law requiring all trash to be set out in bins while awaiting pickup.

"Butterfield Market?" DSNY wrote in a post on Tuesday along with an image of a row of black trash bags sitting on the sidewalk curb. "It’d be better if you didn’t…"

"Food-related businesses have been REQUIRED to use bins for their trash for months," the post continued. "This is not new."

The post confirmed that Butterfield Market was issued a fine for the dirty violation.
According to the DSNY, fines related to the new rule begins at $50 for a first offence, $100 for a second and $200 for all subsequent violations.

A DSNY spokesperson confirmed it was the first fine for Butterfield and that they had also previously received a warning.

Butterfield's owner, Joelle Obsatz, told Patch that an order of large bins should arrive on Friday, adding that the market washes the street twice a day and that their private carting service typically picks up their garbage a few hours after putting it out.

"As a small business operating in Manhattan where space is always limited, we have been challenged to find space to store many large containers," Obsatz says.

That concern has been echoed by many New Yorkers, citing space and storage issues related to the mandated bins.

DSNY posted a cheeky response in September, suggesting that businesses stack and stash the containers outside.

Enforcement of the new rule requiring food-related business to use containers when putting out trash for collection began in September.

The goal behind the new rule according to the city is to both clean up the trash-covered sidewalks and limit the access rodents have to a free all-night buffet, which most rodent experts say is the only way to truly fight the city's growing rat population.

In the month before enforcement began, DSNY issued over 21,000 warnings to city businesses.

A second and similar rule was also issued to chain businesses with five or more New York City locations.

"These two proposals will have a transformative effect on our city and will eliminate the mountains of food and waste piled up in bags and on our sidewalks," Adams said in June.

That second rule also helped land Ralph Lauren on the DSNY social media page, calling them out for failing to containerize their trash and for setting refuse out too early in the evening.

But DSNY doesn't always use their social media platform for public shaming — just days after enforcement of the new container rule began, the account praised Gray's Papaya for their use of compliant bins.