Illegal Dumping Riles Thrift Store Owners : Ventura: More people are leaving their garbage behind the shops after-hours. Higher trash-collection fees are blamed.

The alleyways and dumpsters behind the thrift stores of downtown Ventura are fast becoming the unofficial town garbage dump, merchants complain.

Although the city’s thrift store managers have always had problems with people depositing garbage behind their stores after-hours, they say the problem has escalated in the past five months.

Store managers attribute the increase in illegal dumping in the alleys of the Main Street area to new city trash-collection rates that have increased garbage bills for many residents.

“People pull in and dump,” Christine Valdivia, assistant manager for the San Buenaventura Mission thrift shop, said. “We come back in the morning, and it’s there.”

Robert Fender, code enforcement specialist for the city, said his office has received calls from the public about the illegal dumping, but added there is little officials can do to prevent it.

There have always been people who considered the thrift stores a more convenient and cheaper dump site than the Bailard Landfill for their unusable couches, chairs, refrigerators, washers and dryers, merchants say.

The Oxnard area landfill generally requires a $15 entrance fee for small loads.

These days the supply of garbage seems never-ending to thrift store managers. Their back lots have become cluttered with household trash, including open cans, old vegetables, leftover dinners and lawn clippings.

“We get paints, jugs filled with oil. You name it, we’ve had it,” Craig Specht, supervisor of the Retarded Children’s Thrift Store, said.

The thrift stores end up paying for the disposal of the trash--hauling the junk away twice a week and sometimes even making daily trips to the landfill.

“It is just a pain,” Monica Carreno, assistant manager for the Goodwill Industries Store, said. “I am sure it does cut into our budget, and I am sure no one even notices.”

Store managers have tried various methods to combat the dumping--from putting up “No Dumping” signs to contacting the police. Nothing seems to work.

“We had the police out to take a written report, but they said there was nothing they can do except catch them in the act,” Cliff Ward, manager of the Retarded Children’s store, said. Hiring a guard to watch the area after closing is too expensive, he added.

Some merchants are considering fencing off their back lots.

“If it is closed in, and the fence is eight feet high, I don’t think they can do it,” said George Rauch, a handyman at the San Buenaventura Mission Thrift Shop.

He added that barbed wire might also deter illegal dumpers.

People who dump garbage in other people’s trash bins without permission are subject to a penalty of up to $250 if caught by city inspectors. They also face possible arrest and maximum penalties of $1,000 fines and six months in jail, Terry Adelman, the city’s director of finance, said.

While expressing concern about the rise in dumping, Ventura officials said they believe the problem will probably diminish as people get used to the city’s higher garbage rates.

Thrift store operators, however, are considerably less optimistic.

Illegal dumping simply goes with the territory for a thrift store business, said Richard Dreibeleis, supervisor of the Salvation Army thrift stores in the Ventura and Santa Barbara county area.

“It is a fact of life,” he said. “That is the nature of the thrift store business. . . . Occasionally, a person is going to come by at night and drop something off.”