HomeMy WebLinkAboutOrd 0564 - Property Maintenance
CITY OF TUKWILA
WASHINGTON
ORDINANCE NO. 564
AMENDED BY 749 944
AN ORDINANCE declaring certain trees, weeds, vegetation,
debris, offensive odors, unnecessary noise, disorderly
houses and unguarded excavations to be public nuisances
and requiring abatement, providing methods for enforce-
ment and for collecting the cost of abatement and removal
if done by the city, and repealing Ordinances 56, 70, 401.
THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF TUKWILA, WASHINGTON DO
ORDAIN AS FOLLOWS:
Section 1. Nuisances, generally defined. A nuisance consists
of doing an unlawful act, or omitting to perform a duty, or suffering
or permitting any condition or thing to be or exist, which act,
omission, condition or thing either
1. Annoys, injures or endangers the comfort, repose, health
or safety of others;
2. Offends decency;
3. Is offensive to the senses;
4. Unlawfully interfers with, obstructs or tends to obstruct
or renders dangerous for passage any stream, public park, parkway,
square, sidewalk, street or highway in the City of Tukwila;
5. In any way renders other persons insecure in life or the
use of property; or
6. Obstructs the free use of property so as to essentially
interfere with the comfortable enjoyment of life and property.
Section 2. Nuisances, specifically defined. The following
specific act8, omissions, places, conditions, and things are hereby
declared to be nuisances:
The erecting, maintaining, using, placing, depositing, causing,
allowing, leaving, or permitting to be or remain in or upon any
private lot, building, structure or premises, or in or upon any street,
avenue, alley, park, parkway, or other public or private place in
the City of Tukwila, of any one or more of the following places,
conditions, things, or acts to the prejudice, danger, or annoyance
of others, to wit:
1. Privies, caults, cesspools, sumps, pits or like places which
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are not securely protected from flies or rats, or which are foul or
malodorous.
2. Filthy, littered or trash covered premises, including all
buildings and structures thereon and areas adjacent thereto.
3. Animal manure in any quantity which is not securely protected
from flies and the elements, or which is kept or handled in violation
of any ordinance of the City of Tukwila.
4. Poison oak, poison ivy, deadly nightshade, or any noxious
or toxic weed or uncultivated plant (whether growing or otherwise),
weeds, tall grass, uncultivated shrubs or growth higher than two
feet, or grass clippings, cut brush or cut weeds.
5. Tin cans, bottles, glass, cans, ashes, small pieces of
scrap iron, wire, metal articles, bric -a -brac, broken stone or cement,
broken crockery, broken glass, broken plaster, and all other trash
or abandoned material, unless the same be kept in covered bins or
metal receptacles approved by the health officer.
6. Trash, litter, rags, accumulations of empty barrels, boxes,
crates, packing cases, mattresses, bedding, excelsior, packing hay,
straw, or other packing material, lumber not neatly piled, scrap
iron, tin, and other metal not neatly piled, or anything whatsoever
in which flies may breed or multiply or which provides harborage for
rats or which may be a fire danger.
7. Any unsightly and dangerous building, billboard or other
structure, or Any old, abandoned or partially destroyed building or
or structure, or any building or structure commenced and left
unfinished.
8. All places used or maintained as junk yards or dumping
grounds, or for the wrecking, dissembling, repair or rebuilding of
automobiles, trucks, tractors or machinery of any kind, or for the
storing or leaving of worn out, wrecked or abandoned automobiles,
trucks, tractors or machinery of any kind or of any of the parts
thereof, or for the storing or leaving of any machinery or equipment
used by contractors or builders or by other persons, which said
places are kept or maintained so as to essentially interfere with
the comfortable enjoyment of life or property by others.
9. Any putrid, unsound or unwholesome bones, meat, hides,
skins, or the whole or any part of any dead animal, fish or fowl,
butcher's trimmings and offal, or any waste vegetable or animal
matter in any quantity, garbage, human excreta or other offensive
substance; provided, nothing herein contained shall prevent the
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temporary retention of waste in receptacles in the manner approved
by the health officer of the City of Tukwila.
10. The erection, continuance or use of any building, room or
other place in said city for the exercise of any trade, employment
or manufacture which, by occasioning noxious exhalations, offensive
odors or other annoyances, is discomforting or offensive or detri-
mental to the health of individuals or of the public.
11. The playing or causing to be played in front of any
building where any show, moving picture exhibition or theatrical
performance is given, or in the open vestibule or area of any building,
of any automatic or mechanical musical instrument for the attraction
of customers.
12. Making, causing or permitting to be made by means of any
whistle, rattle, bell, gong, clapper, hammer, drum, sound truck,
loudspeaker or other sound amplifiying device, or horn or other
mechanical device, or by outcry, loud speaking, singing or by any
other means, any discordant and unnecessary noise of any kind which
shall annoy any considerable number of persons lawfully in the
immediate area.
13. Burning or disposal of refuse, sawdust or other material
in such a manner to cause or permit ashes, sawdust, soot or cinders
to be cast upon the streets or alleys of the city of Tukwila, or to
cause or permit the smoke, ashes, soot or gases arising from such
burning to become annoying to any considerable number of persons or
to injure or endanger the health, comfort or repose of said persons;
provided, this section shall not apply where the party responsible
for the action has properly obtained a fire permit from the Fire
Department of ths. City of Tukwila.
14, All disorderly houses, houses of ill fame, houses of
prostitution or bawdy houses, or houses or premises kept or resorted
to for the purposes of prostitution or for the resort of lewd people,
and all houses, premises, rooms, booths, scows, boats or other
structures used as places of resort where women are employed to
draw customers, dance or for the purpose of prostitution, or in
which women solicit, practice or carry on the business of prostitution,
or in which the solicitation of drinks of intoxicating liquors or
reputed intoxicants by patrons or employees for their own consumption -7-
is regularly and customarily permitted, or in which any drugs are
being illegally kept, illegally sold, or illegally consumed.
15. Any premises, place or business establishment where
drunkenness, fighting or breaches of the peace are carried on or
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permitted or tolerated, or where loud noises are carried on or
permitted in such a way as to disturb the peace and tranquillity
of the neighborhood.
16. Any building, room or rooms, place or places in said city
kept or maintained in which intoxicating liquors are sold or given
away contrary to law, or in which such liquors are kept or harbored
for the evident purpose of selling or giving away the .same contrary
to law, or where persons are permitted to resort for the purpose of
drinking intoxicating liquors, or where intoxicating liquors are
kept for the purpose of inducing people to resort to buy or receive
intoxicating liquors in violation of law.
17. Any unguarded or abandoned excavation, pit, well or hole
dangerous to life.
18. The keeping or harboring of any dog or other animal which
by frequent or habitual howling, yelping, barking or the making of
other noises, or the keeping or harboring of any fowl which by
frequent or habitual crowing or the making of other noises shall
annoy or disturb a neighborhood or any considerable number of persons;
provided, that a violation of this subdivision shall not be established
except upon the testimony of not less than three witnesses as to the
facts constituting the nuisance.
Section 3. Person defined. For the purposes of this chapter,
the word person, wherever used in this chapter, shall be held and
construed to mean and include natural persons of either sex, firms,
copartnerships and corporations, and all associations of natural
persons, whether acting by themselves or by a servant or employee.
Section 4. Abatement. When judgment shall be rendered against
any person, firm or corporation finding them guilty of creating,
keeping or maintaining a nuisance, as herein provided, it shall be
the duty of the court before whom the conviction is had, in addition
to imposing the penalty or penalties hereinabove provided, to order
the defendant or defendants in such action to forthwith abate and
remove such nuisance, and if the same is not done by such offender
within twenty -four hours the/shall be abated and removed under the
direction of the Chief of Police of the City of Tukwila or any other
officer authorized by the order of said court which said order of
abatement shall be entered upon the docket of said court and made a
part of the judgment in said action. When any such nuisance is of
such a character, and is so situated that same can be abated without
the invasion or destruction of private property and further continuance
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is likely to result in expense to the City or injury to any person,
it shall be the duty of the Chief of Police to abate and remove the
same summarily without waiting for the conviction of the author thereof.
Section 5. Care and abatement of nuisance, assistance and means.
When any case where a nuisance is to be abated by the Chief of Police,
or any other officer thereto authorized, it shall be the duty of
such officer to proceed with due care and without any unnecessary
destruction of property, and he shall in all cases be authorized to
employ such assistance and adopt such means as may be necessary to
affect the entire abatement of the evil in question.
Section 6. Liability for costs of abatement. Any person, firm
or corporation found guilty of keeping or maintaining a nuisance as
hereinabove provided shall be liable for all costs and expenses of
abating the same when said nuisance has been abated by any officer
of the City of Tukwila, which said costs and expenses shall be taxed
as part of the costs of said prosecution against the party liable,
to be recovered as other costs are recovered. Provided, that in
such cases the City shall be liable in the first instance to pay the
same, and in all cases where the Chief of Police or other officer
shall abate any such nuisance he shall keep an account of all
expenses attending such abatement and in addition to other powers
herein given to collect such costs and expenses, the City of Tukwila
may bring suit for the same in any court of competent jurisdiction
against the person, firm or corporation creating, keeping or main-
taining the nuisance so abated.
Section 7. Buildings to be secured. Every agent or owner of,
any unoccupied building in the City of Tukwila shall keep the same
securely closed at all times against persons who may enter and
commit a nuisance therein.
Section 8 Violation Penalty. Any person, firm or corporation
violating any of the provisions of this chapter or who shall create,
keep or maintain any nuisance as herein defined, or any person present
in such a place as is defined in Section 2, subsections 14, 15, and
16 of this chapter shall upon conviction thereof be fined in any sum
not exceeding five hundred dollars or imprisoned in the county jail
for a period not exceeding ninety days, or both so fined and im-
prisoned in the discretion of the court, and for each act herein
prohibited of a continuing nature each day shall be considered a
separate offense.
Section 9. Repealer. The following are hereby repealed:
1. Ordinance 56, approved March 14, 1916
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2. Ordinance 70, approved February 12, 1918
3. Ordinance 401, approved June 15, 1964.
PASSED by the City Council of the City of Tukwila,
Washington, and APPROVED by the Mayor at a regular meeting thereof
this 7th day of July, 1969.
ATTEST:
City -Clerk
APPROVED IAS" TO FO
City Attorney`
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Mayor