Marion Council ‘threatened to prosecute’ Second Chances Op Shop at Sturt – and then backed down after media inquiries
People flooded this Adelaide op-shop with junk – but when volunteers tried to fix the problem, the local council clamped down hard.
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An Adelaide council threatened to prosecute a charity op-shop besieged by rubbish dumped outside its doors after volunteers moved the junk out of the way of pedestrians, a manager says.
Second Chances social enterprises manager Sam Narroway said he was worried the small charity, which runs the Sturt op-shop, would have closed if the prosecution proceeded.
Hours after The Advertiser contacted Marion Council for comment, and a day after the charity made a plea for common sense at a public council meeting, Mr Narroway said a council manager called to say the investigation was dropped with no findings.
“It shouldn’t take council meetings and The Advertiser’s involvement just to get council to back down on charities; it should have never happened in the first place,” he said.
The op-shop’s volunteers have been moving “rubbish” dumped outside the store for safety reasons to a nearby side-street and out the back of the op-shop.
But the council said as soon as they touch it, it’s legally their responsibility – and threatened the op-shop with prosecution because it couldn’t afford removal fees, Mr Narroway said.
Before the council backed down, Mr Narroway said the Second Chances op-shop was “currently under investigation, facing prosecution” as the dumping of rubbish at their store increased over the past six months.
He said “literal boxes of rubbish” and “old couches with ripped pieces” had appeared outside the shop and the charity could no longer afford monthly disposal at the tip costing up to $500.
“Our volunteers had been picking stuff up off the road to move it around to Plymouth Ave, to not obstruct (foot) traffic on Diagonal Rd and to make the place look a bit more presentable,” he said.
“But the Marion Council inspectors have come around and they’ve been interrogating our volunteers, accusing us of dumping the stuff as if we brought it from our own homes.
“They’ve told me directly that we are not allowed to touch dumped rubbish. By touching it, we’re legally responsible for it.
“We’ve had the inspectors here on four occasions now; they’ve been taking witness statements from our neighbours.”
Mr Narroway said a prosecution could have closed the charity, meaning thousands of clients it supports in the community and in prison fellowship would lose help.
“I’ve (now) told all my volunteers to just leave the rubbish on the side of the road and not to touch it, regardless of what sort of risk or hazard it has, because obviously I don’t want any further issues from the council,” he said.
“There’s boxes out the front right now that have been sitting there for two weeks, and I’ve rang the council four times and they said that they’ll come and look into it, but it still hasn’t been removed.”
He said the council should change its by-laws to support charities besieged by dumping.
A Marion Council spokesman said the investigation was “finalised with no action taken”.
“We are working with the facility to increase surveillance of surrounding streets, so we can detect and deter any illegal dumping in the future,” he said.
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