By Audrey Levine, Staff Writer
After months of looking at clothes, shoes, boxes and other items thrown haphazardly around the charity clothing bins behind the Amwell Auto and Tire Center, on Route 206, owner Joe Traszer decided enough was enough.
”A couple months ago, I noticed the place looked like a dump,” he said. “I got tired of looking at it.”
When calls to the owner of the clothing bins John Lanigan, of South Carolina initially yielded no results, Mr. Traszer decided to take matters into his own hands, and, with employees Donnie Riggs and Alfred Daniels, spent about three hours in early April cleaning the area.
According to Mr. Traszer, there are between eight and 10 clothing bins behind the business, all with one owner. When he was finally able to speak to the owner, Mr. Traszer said, he was told that someone had been hired to take care of the bins once a week.
That person, Mr. Traszer said, has supposedly been subsequently fired.
”It’s a collection area, and other places seem to stay clean,” he said. “This area got out of control. After awhile, people saw the garbage and started dumping their things there.”
Mr. Traszer said people tended to drop carriages and other furniture by the bins even though they are only meant for clothes. Then, if these larger items were covering the opening for the bin, people would just drop their items on the ground instead of trying to find the door.
Public Works Director Buck Sixt said Mr. Lanigan also owns another bin in that area to hold items larger than just clothes, but people were dropping off pieces that would not even fit there.
By the time he and his workers had finished much of the cleanup, Mr. Traszer said, they had filled one garbage dump bin about three-quarters full with just the items they picked up off the ground. Since the work was not fully complete by that time, he said, the township sent workers to finish the job the following week.
Mr. Sixt said no fines were issued to the owner of the bins, who was very willing to figure out a way to clean up the property. Mr. Sixt said that fines are usually issued when the owners do not respond to calls to clean the area, but because Mr. Lanigan was willing to help, despite the fact that the cleanup was already complete, violations were not sent.
”He couldn’t have been more receptive,” Mr. Sixt said. “He wanted to take care of it, and (offered) to pay the bills (for the cleanup). He didn’t expect someone else to take care of it.”
Mr. Lanigan was unavailable to comment.
According to Mr. Traszer, this was the first time in the couple of years the bins have been behind his business that the amount of garbage has gotten out of control. But now that he has spoken directly with the owner, he said he hopes it will not happen again.
”Now we have direct contact with the owner for if it gets out of hand again,” he said. “It’s just a clothes drop.”

