Cafe owner fined for dumping rubbish in other people's bins

A cafe owner who thought it was alright to put his rubbish in other people's bins rather than pay to have it collected has been ordered to pay more than £4,000.

In 2019, the council’s environmental health team was told that the owners of Arizona's Cafe on Hollins Road were not getting rid of their waste properly.

By law, all businesses must be able to produce trade waste documentation. This shows they have a contract is in place with a licenced waste collection service.

Enforcement officers visited the property and owner David Herbert was asked to produce his documentation.

When he failed to do so, he was issued with a fixed penalty notice of £300, which would have been reduced to £200 if he had paid within 14 days.

The fine was not paid and so court proceedings were started.

Herbert failed to turn up for court on the day his case was due to be heard so a warrant for his arrest was issued.

He attended court after the warrant was executed and elected to have his case heard in court.

The case was heard at Manchester Crown Court and he was found guilty of one charge of failing in duty of care in relation to waste as he failed to produce waste transfer notes when asked.

The judge ordered Herbert to pay a fine of £1,200 and costs of £2,962.50.

Herbert has until 22 December to pay a total of £4,162.50.

If he does not, the judge said he must serve 45 days in prison.

Arizona's Cafe is no longer trading.

Councillor Amanda Chadderton, deputy leader of Oldham Council and cabinet member for neighbourhoods, said: “Herbert thought it was fine to just dump his rubbish where he wanted and let someone else pay for it to be collected.

“All businesses must have the correct trade waste documentation in place – if they don’t then they can expect action to be taken against them.

“If Herbert had acted responsibly, like the vast majority of Oldham business owners do, he could have saved himself a lot of money.”