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Originally Posted by Tristan Lall
Is it particularly overzealous for a democratic government to respond to a perceived problem by enacting an ordinance? There's a fair debate to be had about the effectiveness of this ban at combatting theft by scavengers (which appears to be the impetus for the law), but as an imposition on "the people" in general, it's trivial at best.
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Tristan,
On the surface it would certainly look this way. However, in the context of the surrounding area, this ordinance serves nothing but to suppress local business people. Hammond is completely surrounded by other urban areas, notably Chicago, Calumet City, Gary and Munster. So much so that it helps form a continuous urban industrial corridor bordered on Lake Michigan that extends from the Wisconsin border to the Indiana Dunes National Seashore. It has two Interstate Highway systems running through the city and it's western boundary forms the border with Illinois. This ordinance will do nothing to stop the scavengers. It will merely close down businesses, jobs and tax revenue. Certainly this is a complex issue for Hammond and other urban centers, however, shutting down recycling centers is not, in my opinion, a viable response to the problem.