Alabama Town’s Ordinance Criminalizes Unpaid Garbage Bills, Disproportionately Impacting Black Residents

A municipal garbage disposal policy in Chickasaw, Alabama, is regarded by its citizens as punitive, experts say it's illegal.

Chickasaw, Alabama’s garbage policy allows residents to be arrested or issued a criminal summons if they get behind on their sewer or garbage bills. If convicted under the city’s ordinance, residents of this small suburb just outside of Mobile face a fine between $25 and $500 and a jail sentence not exceeding 10 days.

According to Inside Climate News, in 2021, the city passed an ordinance on outstanding bills. The ordinance charges a $25 fee for each month the original bill goes unpaid and does not allow debtors to make partial payments.

Investigators for the outlet determined that the ordinance, passed by an all-white city council, disproportionately harms the city’s Black population. Although the racial makeup of the city is relatively evenly distributed among white and Black citizens, the policy has had a disastrous effect on women, Black residents, and people with disabilities.

Chickasaw’s history tells a more troubling story. According to Inside Climate News, the city was founded as a whites-only company town in the early 20th century. This exclusionary practice continued until 1980 when a federal court case revealed that Chickasaw had long been perceived as a “Caucasian town” and that no Black residents had lived there since World War II.

Following that lawsuit, Chickasaw’s Black population began to climb; however, the city’s leadership remained white.

According to Shaquala Jackson, a former resident who also faced problems after the city charged her with “theft of service,” the city’s past is bleeding into its present.

“I was always told that Chickasaw was a ‘No Black Zone’ for many years,” Jackson told Inside Climate News. “So maybe they just want to get the Black people out of ‘their’ area.”

According to Southern Poverty Law Center legal experts, Chickasaw’s policy of prosecuting its residents over unpaid garbage bills violates Alabama and federal law.

On Sept. 11, SPLC lawyers sent a letter to Chickasaw’s city attorney indicating that the city was violating constitutional provisions at both the state and federal levels.

“Our review of the City’s billing practices, its theft of service ordinance, nearly 200 criminal case files, and conversations with dozens of Chickasaw residents indicate that the City’s practices violate multiple constitutional provisions and state and federal laws,” the SPLC’s lawyers wrote.

A similar case unfolded in Alabama in 2022 when Valley, a city in Alabama located along the Chattahoochee River, made national headlines after police arrested Martha Menefield, an 82-year-old woman, over her unpaid garbage bills.

Now, it appears that prosecuting citizens for falling behind on garbage bills is a more widespread practice than Micah West, an SPLC lawyer, previously believed.

West told Inside Climate News, “We can see now in Chickasaw that Valley was not an isolated incident. We think that cities throughout the state of Alabama are prosecuting people who fall behind on their garbage bills.”