The Canton City Council has unanimously approved a new ordinance toughening the city's high-grass and weeds law, making it possible for repeat violators to get jail time. The following report in the Canton Repository discusses the national attention received by what may be the first of its kind legislation.

Cut your high grass or face jail time
Canton City Council passes controversial law 

CANTON City Council has unanimously approved toughening the city's high-grass and weeds law, making it possible for repeat violators to get jail time.

Council passed the legislation Monday night by a vote of 12-0. The amended law will take effect in 30 days.

Law Director Joseph Martuccio initially had expected the law change to be up for a vote later this month. However, council decided to suspend rules and hold both the second and third readings Monday.

The revised law makes a second high-grass violation a fourth-degree misdemeanor, which carries a fine of up to $250 and up to 30 days in jail. Existing law makes the first violation a minor misdemeanor, with a fine of up to $150 but no jail time. Violators initially are mailed a notice and given five days to mow the grass.

During a committee session, Council Majority Leader Donald Casar, D-at large, said he supported approving the legislation Monday to avoid further delay in implementing the law, since it's grass-cutting season.

City officials say they are targeting the most egregious violators of the high-grass law, which applies to grass and weeds higher than 8 inches. However, the overgrown lots the city is forced to mow are a foot or more, officials say.

High grass is a health and safety issue, since overgrown lots can attract rodents, according to health officials.

NATIONAL ATTENTION

A few weeks ago, a Repository story about the proposed law change was posted on numerous Web sites, including the popular Drudge Report. E-mails poured in from across the country to the newspaper, many of the writers outraged by the potential punishment of jail time.

Strengthening the law is an effort to reduce the roughly $250,000 the city spends to cut about 2,000 private lots each year and to address public complaints, Councilman Greg Hawk, D-1, has said.

Mayor William J. Healy II supports the new law. The focus is not to put repeat violators in jail, which is at the discretion of a municipal court judge, but to put "teeth" into the law to force property owners to cut excessively high lots, Healy said after the meeting.

"This is the type of action we need to take in order to clean up our neighborhoods and our city," Healy said.

"You're really talking the worst of the worst," he said. Instead of jail time, Healy said judges may be more likely to sentence repeat violators to cut grass as a community service.

Local critics have said the city should first make sure it mows high grass on city properties, including along streets and highways.

Service Director Thomas Bernabei agreed that the city "should set an example" and maintain its properties. Bernabei said residents who want to report such lots can call him at (330) 438-4310 or the Canton Health Department at (330) 489-3231

To view the online article, please click here.    

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