SQUEEGEE men and bill posters beware - you could soon be fined.
In an internal notice, police officers have been encouraged to issue fines of up to $400 for washing car windscreens at intersections or putting up posters on power poles.
But NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione, who is championing the initiative, said it is not a revenue raising exercise, instead insisting it is what the community wants to feel safe.
He does not expect his officers to drop everything else but Mr Scipione wants them "to know what their powers are" in case they come across such crimes. "They are clearly crimes," he said. "While they might not be the biggest [issues] they are often the most important when it comes to the community."
Mr Scipione said he ranked this with other "quality of life issues" such as noise, car hoons and alcohol-related crime. People being approached in their cars at intersections or walking through streets "just covered" in posters may feel like they are in a dangerous situation, he said. So the crackdown is about "making people feel like they are being looked after".
Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research director Don Weatherburn said while people often express a great deal of concern about minor crime such as vandalism and graffiti, there is little evidence that cracking down on it reduces serious crimes.
Mr Scipione's initiative comes as the City of Sydney Council has announced it will start fining bill posters from tomorrow, targeting mainly large entertainment venues, who have been warned to stop the practice. They could face council fines of up to $1500 for a corporation and $750 for an individual.
Bill posters wash into stormwater drains and damage the environment, said a council spokesman. In the past four years, the council has paid $6million to remove hundreds of thousands of posters from poles, hoardings and signs. Council of Civil Liberties president Cameron Murphy sees the clampdown on bill posters as a restriction of freedom of speech.
He said: "Do you really want to live in a community where we are fined, bankrupted or arrested for putting up posters without having cleared it with council or the police commissioner or another person in authority first?"
Mr Murphy cited the proposed powers against demonstrators during APEC and the raid on Bill Henson's exhibition as examples of "a pattern" of police initiatives. It was the role of the police commissioner to ensure tolerance of different views to build relationships with community groups, he said.
In a recent Police Gazette, Deputy Commissioner Dave Owens reminded officers of the "value of issuing infringement notices" that can be issued as on-the-spot fines under the NSW Protection of the Environment Operations Act.
People washing windscreens at intersections face a maximum fine of $53 while those who put up bill posters can be fined $200, with corporations facing a fine of up to $400.
