Waltham Forest to issue £80 on-the-spot spitting fines
A north-east London council has introduced on-the-spot fines for spitting and urinating in the street.
Waltham Forest said its enforcement officers are to start to issuing fixed penalty notices for them in same way they sometimes do for littering.
The council believes it is the first local authority in the UK to introduce on-the-spot fines for spitting.
Councillor Clyde Loakes said it brought in the policy after residents had complained about the problem.
Last year, Enfield Council announced plans to introduce a by-law to ban spitting but is still waiting for the government to approve it.
'Enviro-crime'
Waltham Forest claims it has been able to get around the bureaucracy of introducing a by-law by deciding to class spit and urine as 'waste'.
The measure is part of their 'Wipe It Out' campaign against environmental crime.
Mr Loakes, who is deputy leader of the council and cabinet member for environment, said: "Residents have told us that they are concerned about this and want the council to do something.
"It's not just spitting, its urinating in public as well.
"These two kind of anti-social, enviro-crime issues need to be tackled, so we have come forward with the proposition that we will treat urinating in public and spitting as waste and will push hard to enforce fixed penalty notices on those we manage to catch."
Only problem here is, the fine is not high enough!
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Seems cheaper to spit at Officers.
Drunk teen pushed and spat at police officersBy Laura Nightingale
February 13, 2013
A TEENAGER landed himself in court after pushing and spitting at two police officers in Fleet.
Robert Marsh, 18, admitted three charges including assaulting PC Derek Morrow and PC Johnny Cheung and behaving drunk and disorderly in a public place when he appeared at Aldershot Magistrates’ Court on Thursday last week (February 7).
On July 18 last year, police were on patrol when they noticed an argument outside KFC, said Serena Edwards, prosecuting.
There was shouting and swearing between two males and PC Morrow stepped in to help his colleague PC Cheung, the court heard.
Marsh, of Hare Lane, Esher, pushed PC Cheung and spat at PC Morrow at around 10cm to 20cm distance from him.
“It was clearly a disgusting situation for the officer,” Miss Edwards said.
At the police station, Marsh admitted drinking a large amount of vodka and lemonade and said he had been in trouble for the same sort of thing before from too much alcohol.
“I am ashamed of myself, it always seems to happen when I get into these situations when I cannot control myself,” he said in a statement read out to the court by Miss Edwards.
Chris Berry, defending Marsh, said his client was not used to drinking that much and could not handle it.
Mr Berry said: “It is fair to say that he was going through a bad patch at the time.
“He had been out of work since August and had been 'sofa surfing' for quite a while until recently.”
Last September, Marsh was charged for possession of cannabis and given a nine-month conditional discharge, the court was told. The assault case meant Marsh, a construction worker, was in breach of his conditional discharge.
Magistrates heard he had not told his family about the drugs charge, and they only found out about the latest incident just days before his court appearance.
Mr Berry said: “Now he has had to open up to people, sort his life out and face the problems.
“His family are looking for courses for Robert to go on as he has suppressed all these issues himself.
"His life is back on track and he is more stable. His family want to do everything they can to stop him getting into trouble.”
Chairman of the bench Angela Brown ordered Marsh to carry out 40 hours of community service within the next 12 months.
Edited by kenworthy, 13 February 2013 - 12:46 PM.
