Today's lesson: Sanitation Department workers aren't all as lovable as Roc. When they have bad days, they will make sure someone feels their wrath. Darbe Pitofsky, an 83-year-old Upper East Sider, learned this lesson the hard way. She says that she was recently chased down and screamed at by a sanitation agent; then given a $100 fine, all for dumping her trash in a corner trash receptacle.
According to Pitofsky, she was leaving her apartment one morning and dumped a bag full of newspapers into a nearby can. It was then that things went bad. A Sanitation Department agent allegedly came running up to Pitofsky, demanding that she admit to having dumped trash in the trash can. According to the Sanitation Department, street cans are for pedestrian use only. We'd love to get into the technicalities behind when a person becomes a pedestrian, but we've got to stay on task here.
When Pitofsky admitted she had deposited her trash in the can, the agent reportedly went nuts. Disrespect a trash can, and you disrespect a Sanitation agent. According to Pitofsky, the man began to yell, "You know you can't do that! Give me your ID! Give me your ID or I'm going to bring you in!"
Pitofsky imagined the worst. "I thought he was going to put me in a cell," she told The New York Post. Pitofsky then offered to get her ID from her apartment, and the agent followed her to her building. Once she retrieved it, he wrote the ticket for $100. When Pitofsky expressed shock at the fee, the agent allegedly shot back, "You want me to make it $300?!"
If Pitofsky's story is correct, we can't help but wonder: Is it possible that the Papa John's Sanitation Department vigilante is back? Lord help us all if he is.
