July 23, 2009 / Park Slope / Perspective / Editorial / Meadows of Shame

Pick up your trash!

The Brooklyn Paper

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Prospect Park is for everyone. But in the wake of Sunday’s disastrous — and, apparently, illegal — party by a local event-planning company, the vital democratic concept of a free, open and inviting public park has unfortunately been lost.

So here’s another equally important and equally democratic concept: Users of the park should pick up their own damn trash!

Not since a 6-year-old girl got a warning letter from the Sanitation Department for making a drawing with sidewalk chalk, has a single Brooklyn Paper story elicited so much passion from our readers as our online coverage of the MIH Ventures’ “Heatwave” barbecue.

Most commenters blamed the right people: the people who left piles of trash when they left.

But others tried to use the party as an excuse to dump their own trash, suggesting that “outsiders” shouldn’t be allowed to gather in such numbers in Park Slope’s own backyard.

So it bears repeating: No one group or neighborhood owns the park. It is for everyone to enjoy.

But this also bears repeating: Pick up your trash!

The Parks Department now says it will demand clean-up reimbursement from MIH Ventures, which is fair, given that the company evaded park rules by not getting a permit for such a large gathering.

But the agency needs to go further. Park enforcement officers need to write summonses for illegal activities such as barbecuing in non-permitted areas or flagrant disregard of the park’s no-alcohol policy. For some reason, enforcement agents prefer to cruise around in there Cushman scooters and hope that their momentary presence will be a deterrent.

In addition, the Parks Department must do a better job cleaning up the park, no matter who is to blame for the mess. On weekends, the park is all of Brooklyn’s playground — rightly, so — but by Monday morning, it typically reverts to being just a neighborhood park, albeit a big one, and needs to be as clean as every other neighborhood’s greenspaces.

More workers may be needed, but in the short-term, it’s obvious that large trash bins are required on weekends, when existing garbage cans overflow.

Advance planning is crucial, too. The city claimed that it could not have known about the MIH Ventures party because the group did not request a permit, but as our story points out, the party was heralded all across the Internet for weeks, including a promise that the party would be “taking over Prospect Park!”

There’s no excuse for not being prepared.

That said, the city didn’t cause the trash. The park users did.

Of course, they’re all welcome to use the park. But they need to pick up after themselves. It’s that simple.

©2009 Community Newspaper Group