Maybe if the city cites al.com or whoever owns the Huntsville Times with a few hundred littering tickets they will stop.

I always thought that the huntsville times advertisements are littering as well. If we don't have a subscription, we don't want trash thrown in our yard. Yet, I also understand that without the advertising revenue from the "free paper" that the times would probably go out of business, and losing our local reporters isn't something that I want to see happen either. *sigh* There's no easy solution here. Fact is, nobody in the younger generation neither needs nor wants the paper anymore. They need to find another way to make money.

I agree, this is a constant littering issue that our law enforcement groups refuse to enforce.
Perhaps a city council meeting is needed to address this issue on the grounds that our officials neglect it's laws it is supposed to uphold.
I personally blame our police department for not issuing the proper tickets.

I think that you must agree with the statements from https://paperell.com/pay-for-papers. Only there you will learn some information about different topics. Me and my friends love to spend some time there and discover new information. I hope that you on the same way of thinking.

I’m glad others see it as littering. We all need to cal the Mayor’s office to complain. However, I think those who responded to my post are people who pick up and throw away their trash. There are hundreds of people who let it sit and rot.

Perhaps we should file a class action suit against all parties involved in this issue.
The City of Huntsville, Law enforcement, 'Free Bee', Huntsville Times and AL.com
Maybe then it would be cost effective for them to resolve.

Greetings,

The City of Huntsville continues to hear from residents who are frustrated with unwanted handbills, such as advertisements, circulars, pamphlets, handouts, and newspapers, being deposited at their homes even after they have tried to have them stopped. The City of Huntsville has an ordinance already in place to stop unwanted hand-billing. The ordinance simply requires you to follow one or both of the following methods for providing notice that you do not want to receive handbills:

A. Posting a Yard Sign. The first and perhaps the easiest way to provide notice is to post a sign on your property in a conspicuous location and that can be easily read that states “No Handbills”, “No Trespassing” or “No Solicitation”. When you do so, please keep in mind that you may also be telling solicitors that you do not want to receive any form of door-to-door solicitation.

Once the notice is posted, then no one can deposit unwanted handbills on your property. If they do, the person who actually deposited the unwanted handbill is subject to being cited for a municipal ordinance violation. Please keep in mind that the person who actually deposited the handbill will need to be identified.

B. Mailing Written Notice. The second way that can be used to provide notice, which can be in addition to or instead of posting the notice at your home, is to notify the responsible person for whom the handbills are being deposited. This could include the publisher of a newspaper or magazine, the owner of a company advertising their product or service, or a candidate for office.

The written notice must: (i) be sent by certified mail, return receipt requested, to the responsible person, (ii) state the name and contact information of the person providing the notice, (iii) state the purpose of the notice, and (iv) give the street address of the private residential premises. The notice becomes effective 14 days after receipt of the request. Please keep a copy of the certified mail return receipt and a copy of the notice you sent. Also, please keep in mind that you must renew the notice in December of each year if you want it to remain in effect for the next calendar year.

Once the written notice is in effect the responsible person you notified cannot allow or cause the unwanted handbill to be placed on your property. If they do, then they are subject to being cited for a municipal ordinance violation.

After you have followed one or both of the notice methods provided for in the ordinance and the notice is ignored, then you will need to contact this office at 256-427-5001 in order to initiate a citation process.

Please be aware that should the matter need to be tried before a municipal court judge, you will also need to be available to testify at the trial of the case.

The entire text of the ordinance, City Code Section 22-39, can be read at the following link: https://goo.gl/xFyW8B . We recommend that you carefully read and understand the ordinance and call our office at 256-427-5001 if you have any questions.

Thank you,
Your Huntsville Connect Customer Service Team

Don't blame them; the Police Department can only enforce laws and ordnances that are on the books. I got my own free weekly ads paper stopped by calling the Times Circulation Department. However, our Neighborhood Association tried to get the Huntsville Times to stop throwing the weekly ads at vacant houses but we were told that the newspaper has a right to free speech and we couldn't stop them.

As a homeowner, I don't care to post signs in my yard, as they are unsightly also.
...and to have to write letters to get it stopped on my property is all well and good, but does not address the issue of the papers being thrown on abandon lots or houses for sale.
The litter travels our neighborhoods and the rotting paper attracts roaches and bedbugs, thus creating a health hazzard.
Throwing papers out at all peoples properties should be done only by request and no other way.

A scheduled newspaper subscription or the local phone books should be the only acception to the rule.

If the ordinance states that each property has to do the hokie pokie to resolve the issue individually, then perhaps the ordinance needs to be changed to limit the amount of random litter thrown into our neighborhoods.

If people can't throw beads out at a parade downtown to families watching, then trash shouldn't be tossed in our neighborhoods.

As homeowners and taxpayers in this city, we should not have to post signs requesting others to respect our property. I would imagine the overwhelming majority of homeowners do not want unsolicited trash being thrown in our yards or salesmen ringing our bells. How about changing the ordinances so you must have a sign posted in order to opt in? Want free trash in your yard, post a sign for that. Want door-to-door salesmen ringing your bell - post a sign saying solicitation is welcome.

It goes against common sense to just allow anything unless the homeowner post a sign to prevent it.

Honestly, I see a business opportunity there for some highschoolers. Have them go around and paint the signs on the curbs in front of houses. Just "No soliciting" painted on the curb in front of every house, and they get $10 to do the stencil work. Easy peasy, and good summer money.

I agree with Citizen, a sign is NOT the way to go to try to keep this type of "litter" off property. Also, most subdivisions with HOA's do not allow signs in yards and would consider those litter as well, unless they are "For Sale" or "For Rent" signs. Our Mayor, Tommy Battle, should understand this given his real estate business.

Honestly, the signage part of this ordinance is completely without bite. If you read carefully, you have to be able to identify the person who threw the paper, and it's the individual - NOT THE COMPANY - who is held responsible. I'm 99% certain the company gives 1/2 a crap about this part of the ordinance.

As for the second part of the ordinance... you have to craft a cease and desist notification which will stand up to scrutiny in court, pay for certified mail, and remember to do it again every year. How many people are going to go through with this? My guess: very few. And that, ladies and gents, is the point.

Pretty obvious that this ordinance is heavily in favor of corporation over the private citizen. I wonder who was sitting in the room as it was being crafted.

The great irony here is that if we were to grab the very same paper that was thrown in our yards, and go to the Paper and throw it in THEIR yard, we'd be fined for littering. Don't deny it @tommybattle - you know it's true!

You know what the ordinance should be? The paper should be required to get each citizen to opt-in to their free bee.

THEY should be sending US a postcard every year, asking us if we want to receive their freebee, not the other way around.

I know how they are pitching to their advertisers. They say, "we have a distribution to over 100,000 house holds and you pay X amount for that level of exposure," --- and that distribution number is a huge lie when you consider that a majority of people are just trashing the freebee the moment it hits their lawn.

The only way for the Times to be fair to both the citizens of Huntsville and their advertisers is for them to have an opt-in program for their freebee, where the citizens who get the freebee have confirmed that they are interested, and will likely read the paper (because I'm sure plenty of people will enjoy the coupons if they need them).

We need to revisit this ordinance and revise it as I have suggested. Tell me, Huntsville Mayor's Office, when and how would we go about doing this?

Funny how the earlier comments were quick to blame the COH and HPD. Neither is to blame. Property owners are responsible for this issue. The property owners should contact the Times and discontinue all deliveries. Even if the property has changed hands it should be handled by the new owners or the company that sold the property. The COH and HPD shouldn’t have to handle something that could be handled by the property owners.

This issue should be closed.

lol... as if any company is going to willingly stop a revenue stream. Very cute, Mr. Doyle. Property owners turn to legal authority when they are ignored. What do you want us to do, huh? Show up to the paper with torches and pitchforks, or throw the Paper's trash on their lawn? You better believe HPD would get involved then. We called the paper. We complained. THAT was the first thing we did. We only came here because we were ignored and it didn't make any sense at all that the ENTIRE CITY OF HUNTSVILLE would have to individually try to fix this issue. There's 300,000 people in this city, and each of them has a freebee on their lawn. What type of sense does it make for each of us to spend months of effort to stop this paper while being constantly ignored? Huh?

We had an ordinance made because of the constant complaints. We TRIED the legal route, but the ordinance was purposefully designed to make things difficult for us. In order to get the paper stopped, we have to first try to complain. Then we have to get photographic evidence of the driver depositing the paper on our lawn. And, EVEN IF WE DO THAT, it's the DRIVER who's legally responsible, not the paper. The poor driver, who's just doing their job, is going to get fined, fired, and then the next day a new driver will take their place and throw a freebee on our lawn.

Stop being ignorant.

First off, Mr. Adam, there is no ignorance on my part with this issue. I’ve had prior successful experience with this issue by doing the same thing that Grammy stated earlier in these comments. I contacted The Times circulation dept. and had the weekly advertisements stopped with one five minute phone call. Me, the property owner, stopped the problem for my residence with a single phone call. Now, I would not be able to stop the same issue for property I have no control over nor would I ask the COH or HPD to handle it. It’s the property owners responsibility. Let’s all adult up and handle things we can handle and let the city government and police dept. handle the bigger issues. Oh, and no one is stopping you from cleaning up trash if you need to. Our neighborhoods would benefit more from positive personal actions than passing the buck onto someone else. I’m done. Have a blessed day.

John Doyle: Any relation to Steve Doyle? https://connect.al.com/staff/sdoyle/posts.html

Drove by this address recently. House is occupied and the litter is cleaned up. This complaint no longer applies to this address. I'm sure that the current occupants do not wish to see their house associated with this complaint. If residents feel compelled to reopen this complaint then they really need to use a new address. Just remember, the COH provided information on how to prevent this issue in the previous comments.

Thanks for fixing this request!