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Business owner fed up with trash pile in local shopping center

6 years 1 week 1 hour ago Wednesday, March 21 2018 Mar 21, 2018 March 21, 2018 5:40 PM March 21, 2018 in News
Source: WBRZ

BATON ROUGE - A tenant at a Baton Rouge shopping center is tired of looking at a large pile of trash that's been growing next to his business for months.

There's so much trash, it doesn't all fit in the dumpster, picked up by Waste Management every Friday. It's encouraged some people to put their trash behind and beside the dumpster in hopes that the trash will still be collected. It's not.

"And I'm tired of it," said John Hilliard. "I don't know what else to do."

Two years and two months ago, Hilliard moved into a unit at Mid City Shopping Center along N. Foster Dr. He has a hair-cutting business called Miracle's and says since November, the trash pile across from his unit has continued to grow.

"They dump the cardboard boxes in, as you can see most of the time they don't break them down correctly like they're supposed to," said Hilliard.

Among the trash, large cardboard boxes, plastic bags, and wooden pallets. Items from the Family Dollar next door.

"An assortment of Easter, Christmas, Halloween items just accumulated in the trash," he said.

With a good breeze, the trash blows in front of Hilliard's storefront and into the parking lot. He says it's not a great representation of his business.

"I definitely didn't put it here," he said.

While the dumpster might be used by multiple tenants in the shopping center, Hilliard has asked his neighbors to be more respectful. He's also asked his landlord to step in and request assistance from other tenants, but the trash pile continues to grow.

Wednesday, 2 On Your Side reached out to landlord Henry Tran. He did not get back with WBRZ regarding a comment, but Dollar Tree, Inc. and Waste Management did.

Dollar Tree, Inc. says it got in touch with the Family Dollar Field Leadership Team. Its immediate focus was getting the trash cleaned up as soon as possible. This was taken care of Wednesday afternoon. It's also focusing on ensuring the area is maintained going forward.

Waste Management says it's been in communications with Family Dollar and is working to gain authorization to "right size" the current service levels, to avoid a similar issue in the future.

Hilliard tells 2 On Your Side a junk removal service was called to the area Wednesday afternoon to clear the area. By the time this story aired on WBRZ, a crew was still tending to the mess.

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