It’s the Law: An unwelcome Christmas present

A week or two ago, a Scotts Valley family received an early Christmas present — a couch, chair and love seat. It was an anonymous gift. A Good Samaritan you ask? Afraid not. The furniture was beaten up and useless, deposited on the property by someone too lazy or cheap, but likely both, to drive to the dump.
My wife grew up on a farm outside of Fresno. She tells me that the dumping of garbage and, of all things, dogs, out in the country was a common occurrence. Her dad was constantly calling the pound and hauling old mattresses, tires, couches, and chairs to the dump.
In asking around, I find that dumping is not uncommon in Scotts Valley and, especially, the San Lorenzo Valley. As you might expect, the more remote, the more likely you will find a dumping.
Of course, such dumping is illegal. What you might not know is that, in a case like the above, it is merely an infraction, akin to a parking ticket (“commercial” dumping is more serious, resulting in a misdemeanor).
The kicker, however, is that every day the gift sits there is another infraction. The fine can get pretty steep pretty quick. Also, the fine is mandatory, meaning that the judge must impose the fine — no getting off with a lecture on being a solid citizen by pretending to be sorry. The first infraction will cost $250 to $1,000, the second $500 to $1500, and subsequent violations $750 to $3,000. If the offending detritus is tires, the fine is doubled.
While the wording of the penal code is a bit mushy, it appears that if one’s little contribution remains in place for, say, 10 days one could be facing a fine in excess of $20,000.
In addition, a judge can order the perp to pick up garbage for “not less than 12 hours.” How would you like to spend your holidays doing that and giving all your Christmas cash to the court?
Of course, you have to catch the lowlifes. As it happens, in the above case a neighbor had a surveillance camera scouring the street and videotaped the perps in the act. A call to the sheriff identified the owner of the truck and the holiday bundle was shortly re-deposited in the bed of the offending truck.
To assure the furniture wasn’t re-gifted; the sheriff required a dated copy of a receipt from the dump.
According to the sheriff, with the advent of high-quality surveillance cameras, they are seeing a 75 percent resolution rate on burglaries and like crimes. They appreciate being informed if you have a camera as the video can, obviously, be invaluable if a crime occurs in the neighborhood.
But, if they don’t know about the camera, they don’t know to ask.
The neighbor with the camera is upgrading his equipment to higher resolution and cautions anyone thinking about putting in a system to do their homework.
Apparently, surveillance equipment has come way down in price, but there is a lot of stock of old technology that produces the infamous grainy footage. I’m told that the new stuff produces videos as good as high definition TV.
A friend of mine gets nervous with the thought of cameras on every street. And, in fact, I’ve had cases where neighbors feud over video cameras that allegedly peer onto their private property.
Nevertheless, I’m sure the family in receipt of the furniture was quite glad their neighbor was on the lookout. That was a very welcome Christmas present.
– Gary Redenbacher of Scotts Valley is an attorney in private practice. E-mail him at

ga**@re*********.com