City Ordinance Enforcement by the Police Department

Sec. 7-384. Cigarette purchase, possession by minors is prohibited.

No person under 18 years of age shall purchase, possess or consume in any manner or form cigarettes or any tobacco product.

Sec. 8-177. Snow removal

It shall be unlawful for any person to park any vehicle on any public street, alley or municipally owned or leased parking lot in the city at anytime within 12 hours after a snowfall of 3 inches or more has occurred or until the snow has been removed therefrom, whichever shall occur sooner. Vehicles parked in violation of this section may be removed at the owner’s expense.

Sec. 8-230. Leaving vehicles; nuisance.

No person shall park, store, leave or permit the parking, storing or leaving of any inoperable motor vehicle, whether attended or not, upon any public or private property with the city for a period of time in excess of 7 days. The presence of an inoperable motor vehicle or parts thereof on private or public property is hereby declared a public nuisance which may be abated as such in accordance with the provisions of this division. This section shall not apply to any motor vehicle that is kept within a building when not in use, to operable historic vehicles over 25 years of age, or to a motor vehicle on the premises of a place of business engaged in wrecking or junking of motor vehicles.

Sec. 9-137. Foul odors; filth.

It is hereby declared to be a nuisance and a danger to the health, safety, welfare, peace and comfort of the city and its residents for any person to:

1. Conduct any business or to use any premises so as to create an offensive or foul odor which taints the air and renders it nauseous to persons in the vicinity.
2. Keep or maintain any animal in an unclean or filthy manner or surroundings, or to keep or maintain any animal form which emits any particularly foul or offensive odors.
3. Cause or permit to be collected or to remain upon any premises or place any animal carcass or any offal, filth, excretion or other noisome or noxious animal matter of any kind which is, or is likely to become, putrid, foul or offensive.
4. Cause or permit to be collected or to remain upon any premises or place any slop or other vegetable matter of any kind which is, or is likely to become, putrid, foul or offensive.
5. Cause of permit any cellar, vault, cistern, drain, privy, yard or other premises whatsoever to become, from any cause, foul or offensive or injurious to the public health.
6. Permit to be collected or to stand upon any premises any foul or stagnant water of any kind.
7. Locate or maintain, or permit to exist or remain, anywhere within the city, any stable or pigsty.
8. Use, deposit or keep any property, substance, or thing emitting or causing any foul, offensive, noisome, nauseous or noxious odor, effluvia or stench particularly repulsive to the physical senses and which annoys, discomforts or endangers the welfare, health or safety of any person.

Sec. 9-138. Rubbish, dry grass.

It is hereby declared a menace to the public safety and health and a nuisance for any person to cause or permit:

1. The deposit or accumulation of any refuse, oily rages, rubbish, or other materials or substances of any kind, so as to constitute a fire hazard.
2. The deposit, accumulation, existence or growth upon any property of any dry or dead weeds, grass, vegetation or other like substances of any kind, so as to constitute a fire hazard.

Sec. 9-161. Duty to cut.

Every owner of real estate within the city shall cut weds or grass, trim trees or bushes and remove nuisances bushes or trees at all such times as may be necessary. For purposes of this Section, grass and weeds in excess of 8 inches in height shall be subject to cutting hereunder.

Sec. 10-231. Open burning generally.

(a) Definitions.

The following words, terms and phrases, when used in this section, shall have the meaning ascribed to them in this section, except where the context clearly indicated as different meaning:

• Agency means the environmental protection agency of the State of Illinois.
• Agricultural wastes means any refuse, except garbage and dead animals, generated on a farm or ranch by a crop and livestock production practices, including such items as bags, cartons, dry bedding, structural materials, and landscape wastes.
• Domicile waste means any refuse generated on a single-family domiciliary property as a result of domiciliary activities. The term includes landscape waste but excludes garbage and trade waste.
• Garbage means waste resulting from the handling, processing, preparation, cooking, and consumption of food, and wastes from the handling, processing, storage, and sales of produce.
• Landscape waste means all accumulation of grass or shrubbery cuttings, leaves, the tree limbs and other materials accumulated as the result of the care of lawns, shrubbery, vines and trees.
• Open burning means the combustion of any matter in such a way that the products of the combustion are emitted to the open air without originating in or passing through equipment for which a permit could be issued under Section 9(b) of the Environmental Protection Act (Ill. Rev. Stat., Chapter 111 1/2, Section 1009).
• Refuse or waste means any garbage, sludge from a waste treatment plant, water supply treatment plant, or air pollution control facility or other discarded material, including solid, liquid, semisolid, or contained gaseous material resulting from industrial, commercial, mining and agricultural operations, and from community activities, but does not include solid or dissolved material in domestic sewage, or solid or dissolved materials in irrigation return flows or industrial discharges which are point to sources subject to permits under Section 402 of the Federal Clean Water Act or source, special nuclear or by-product materials as defined by the Federal Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (68 Stat. 921) or any solid or dissolved material from any facility subject o the Federal Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (P.L. 95-87) or the rules and regulations thereunder or any law or rule or regulation adopted by the State of Illinois pursuant thereto.
• Restricted areas means the area within the boundaries of any “municipality,” as defined in the Illinois Municipal Code, plus a zone extending 1 mile beyond the boundaries of any such municipality having a population of one thousand (1,000) or more according to the latest federal census.
• The Act means the Environmental Protection Act, as amended (Ill. Rev. Stat., Chapter 111 1/2, Section 1001 et seq.).
• Trade waste means any refuse resulting from the prosecution of any trade, business, industry, commercial venture, utility or service activity and any government or institutional activity, whether or not for profit. The term includes landscape waste but excludes agricultural waste.

(b) Prohibitions.

1. The burning of leaves and other landscape waste shall be lawful during the period on April 1 and ending May 1 of each year and during the period beginning on October 1 and ending on November 30 each year, except that no burning shall be permitted on Mondays and Fridays. No burning shall be permitted before 7:00 a.m. or after 5:00 p.m. The above time for burning may be expanded, shortened or abolished as follows:
2. No person shall cause or allow the burning of any refuse in any chamber or apparatus, unless such chamber or apparatus is designed for the purpose of disposing of the class of refuse being burned.

(c) Exemptions.

The following activities are not in violation of Section 9(c) of the Environmental Protection Act (Ill. Rev. Stat., Chapter 111 1/2, Section 1009) or of this section unless they cause air pollution as defined in such Act, referred to in section as the “the Act.” Nothing in this subsection shall exempt such activities from applicable local restrictions.

1. The open burning of domicile waste or landscape waste, but only:
   • On the premises on which such waste is generated;
   • In areas other than restricted areas;
   • When atmospheric conditions will readily dissipate contaminants; and
   • If such burning does not create a visibility hazard on roadways, railroad tracks or airfields.
   • When it can be affirmatively demonstrated that no economically reasonable alternative method of disposal is available.
2. The open burning of domicile waste or landscape waste, but only:
   1. On the premises on which such waste is generated;
   2. In areas other than restricted areas;
   3. When atmospheric conditions will readily dissipate contaminants; and
   4. If such burning does not create a visibility hazard on roadways, railroad tracks or airfields.
3. The setting of fires to combat or limit existing fires, when reasonably necessary in the judgment of the responsible government official.
4. The burning of fuels for legitimate campfire, recreational and cooking purposes, or in domestic fireplaces, in areas where such burning is consistent with other laws, provided that no garbage shall be burned in such cases.
5. The burning of waste gases, provided that in the case of refineries all such flares shall be equipped with smokeless tips of comparable devices to reduce pollution.
6. Small open flames for heating tar, for welding, acetylene, torches, highway safety flares, and the like.

(d) Permits.

1. The environmental protection agency may grant permits for opening in the following instances:
   • For instruction in methods of firefighting; or for testing of equipment for extinguishing fires, of flares and signals, or of experimental incinerators, or for research in control of fires.
   • For the destruction of vegetation on site under circumstances in which its removal would necessitate significant environmental damage.
   • For research or management in prairie or forest ecology.
   • For the destruction of landscape wastes, provided that such burning shall not occur:
     1. In restricted areas, unless during is conducted with the aid of an air curtain destructor or comparable device to reduce emissions substantially;
     2. Within 1,000 feet of any residential or other populated area; or
     3. Except with the aid of an air curtain destructor or comparable device to reduce contaminant emissions substantially.
2. An application for a permit shall be in such form and shall contain such information as shall be required in procedures adopted by the agency. Such application shall contain as a minimum, data and information sufficient to inform the agency with respect to: The exact quantities and types of material to be burned; the exact nature and exact quantities of air contaminant emission which will result; the exact frequency, including dates where appropriate, when such burning will take place; the exact location of the burning site; including a map showing distances to residences, populated areas, roadways, airfields, etc.; the methods or actions which will be taken to reduce the emission of air contaminants; the reasons why alternatives to open burning are not available; and the reasons why such burning is necessary to the public interest.
3. No permit shall be granted unless the applicant proves to the satisfaction of the agency that the opening burning is necessary to the public interest; will be conducted in such a time, place and manner as to minimize the emission of air contaminants; and will have no serious detrimental effect upon adjacent properties or the occupants thereof.
4. The agency may impose such conditions in the permit as may be necessary to accomplish the purposes of the Act or this section.
5. No permit shall be valid for longer than one (1) year. Applications for renewal of a permit shall be submitted to the agency at least ninety (90) days prior to the expiration of the prior permit , and shall conform to subsection (d)(2) of this section. The standards for issuance of renewal permits shall be set forth in subsection (d)(3).
   A violation of any of the conditions of the permit shall be grounds for revocation of the permit by the agency, as well as for other sanctions provided in the Act.
6. The agency may revise any permit granted pursuant to this section, or any condition contained in such permit.

(e) Explosive wastes.

Open burning of wastes creating a hazard of explosion, fir other serious harm, unless authorized by other provisions in this section , shall be permitted only upon application for and grant of a variance as provided by the Act and Chapter 1 of the rules and regulations of the state pollution control board.

Sec. 10-274. Running at large.

• Dogs which are properly licensed and vaccinated as stipulated in this chapter, may be allowed outside of an enclosure, if under secure leash and accompanied by its owner or keeper, but are not allowed to trespass on any private property. Any dog that is impounded will not be returned to said owner until such time as said owner shall the dog spayed or neutered and micro-chipped. (Exceptions to this are purebred dogs used for breeding, whereas owner must show proper documentation such as American Kennel Club registration etc.).
• Cats which are privately owned, have been spayed or neutered, and are properly tagged with an identification tag, provided by owner or police department, which must clearly indicate the owner’s name, current address and telephone number , may be allowed outside of an enclosure. However, if said cat(s) are declared a nuisance or city receives a complaint, then said cat(s) will be found to be at large and impounded if deemed necessary by the animal control officer or police. Any cat collected under the provisions of this section shall not be returned to its owner until such time as said owner shall have the cat spayed or neutered and micro-chipped. Cats which have been identified through “notching” of the ears, shall be identified as having been neutered or spayed.

Sec. 10-281. Nuisance animals.

No keeper or owner of any animal shall fail to exercise proper care and control of the animal to prevent the animal from becoming a public nuisance. Any animal doing any of the following is declared a nuisance: Excessive, continuous or untimely barking; molesting passerby; biting or attacking any person without provocation on 1 or more occasions; chasing vehicles including bicycles;, habitually attacking other domestic animals; trespassing upon school grounds or trespassing upon private property in such a manner as to damage property. Other examples are; foul odors, the keeping of an unclean or filthy surroundings where an animal is maintained; any animal matter is putrid, foul or offensive; animal noises that disturb the public peace; any animal that is public that may alarm or disturb the general public, such as snakes, spiders, lizard, etc.

Sec. 11-209. Depositing litter into public ways prohibited.

No person shall sweep or deposit any litter into any public place or public way except in public containers. Persons owning or occupying property shall keep the sidewalk and any right-of-way on their property free of litter.

Definitions:

• Litter includes garbage and rubbish.
• Garbage means the animal and vegetable matter resulting from the handling, preparation, cooking, consumption and storage of food; and any other matter of any nature whatsoever subject to decay which may putrefy or generate noxious or offensive odors, be a food source for rodents, or may serve as a breeding or feeding place for insects or vermin.
• Rubbish means nonputrescible solid waste consisting of both combustible and noncombustible waste, such as paper, wrappings, cigarettes, cardboard, metal cans, yard clippings, dead trees, tree limbs, wood, glass, discarded furniture, concrete, bricks, crockery, and similar materials. However, rubbish shall not include wood and other materials that are stored and commonly used for fuel.