Chicago Residents File Suit To Stop Delivery Of Free-Ad Papers
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Residents in Humboldt Park and Logan Square have had it with those free ad-papers that pile up on your doorstep.
Publishers call them a service but some homeowners just call them a nuisance.
Now, they've taken action, and achieved some results, reports CBS 2's Derrick Blakley.
For Humboldt Park resident Shehzad Hoossein, it's a frustrating, daily ritual to pick up the free paper from the front lawn and toss it in the recycling bin.
"If you walk up and down the street here you'll just see these all over the place. It's just ugly," said Hoosein.
Some houses get two or three a day, piled up on porches and littering the parkways. Hamilton Soto has lived in his Humboldt Park home for over 30 years.
Soto says he has asked to stop them to stop delivery "so many times, so many times. I have told them to stop but they just continue."
Ald. Rey Colon (35th) says when the papers pile up at foreclosed properties, they contribute to crime as well.
"The papers pile up pretty quick and give a signal to squatters that you can come into this property," said Colon.
So Humboldt Park attorney Mike Jaskula took action, filing a lawsuit last month against the Tribune for 24 neighborhood residents. The allegation: Their published process for stopping delivery didn't work.
"We allege that was just a sham process that they had in place, it wasn't real, and that what they were doing was trespassing on our properties and creating a nuisance," said Jaskula.
To Jaskula's surprise the Tribune, which publishes the Red Plum ad paper, quickly settled.
Maggie Wartik, spokesman for TribLocal says, "If any resident wishes to stop any Red Plum deliveries please send an e-mail directly to ronbuss@tribune.com with your name and address and we will see to it that you receive no more home deliveries."
Residents who used this e-mail contact told CBS 2, the unwanted deliveries finally ended.
