Officials Propose Ban on Driveway Ad Deliveries

They come in the morning: plastic newspaper bags stuffed with ads, often unsolicited. And Ridgewood officials are now proposing an ordinance to clear the "clutter" from village driveways.

The council last week asked Village Attorney Matt Rogers to research the possibility of drafting an ordinance to ban the delivery of unsolicited advertorials within the village, and report back at a future meeting.

Mayor Paul Aronsohn said that he believed a ban would not pose any First Amendment issues. The discussion, he said, began after a resident emailed the village about the issue last month.

Deputy Mayor Albert Pucciarelli had his own complaints about the deliveries, bringing a sample of a bagged ad collection to the council's Sept. 11 meeting.

“I don’t know where it came from, there’s no identifying source,” he said of the plastic bag in question. “And it’s just cluttered with ads.”

"The cars go up the street and stop at every home and you hear them at 6:30, 7:00…and they throw the package on our driveways,” he continued. “To me, that’s litter.”

He added that the village picks up the cost of recycling the ads, which he suspected many residents dispose of immediately.

“If we’re going to regulate this, what about the people that don’t pick up papers in their driveway?” he asked.

As Aronsohn noted, that buildup poses a possible safety issue, especially with the unsolicited materials, as it advertises a homeowner’s absence to potential burglars when they aren’t home to collect the papers from their driveway.

The proposed ban would not effect delivery of newspaper subscriptions, and Pucciarelli said that it boiled down to a simple personal property issue.

“I think we have a right on our property to say what kind of litter and clutter we want,” he said.

What do you think of the proposal? Good idea? Bad idea? Share your opinion with us in the comments.