The Lynnway odor conundrum

We have lived the Lynnway odor conundrum for years.

While the Daily Item claims the odor problem popped up three months ago, those of us who travel the Lynnway everyday north and south and who shop on the Lynnway know about the stench that has plagued this area for years.

It bothers us that the Item believes it was just three months ago that this all came to pass. For a publication that loves to hate the city that has propped it up all these years it is an egregious error and a missed opportunity at once again making the headline that Lynn is bad.

It has been years of bad odors, of nuisance odors, or terrible odors making nearly everyone driving down the Lynnway have the thought: “Gee, Lynn stinks.”

Three months ago, the odors went into high gear, worse than ever before and so mightily noxious as to give new meaning to the word nuisance.

Enter the local Health Department after years of yawning.

Mary Ann O’Connor is a good soldier.

She can do only so much without the command or support of her superiors at city hall.

She should have been fining Garelick Farms daily for three months already.

Garelick hasn’t been fined once and now were hearing that others might be more responsible for the stench than Garelick Farms.

Mind you, some of us have been fined by the city for putting out neatly folded bits of cardboard – tied up – for trash removal.

Some of us received a $50 fine for such an offense – and Garelick Farms, stinking up the city in a way thought to be quite impossible and almost incomprehensible has been fined not a penny.

If the problem is larger than Garelick Farms, wider spread than Garelick Farms, then let’s get on with it and start fining people.

Fine the trash transfer station. That place stinks.

Fine the city’s wastewater treatment plant.

That place stinks, also.

Fine the fat rendering company better yet, close it down, as the city did a few days ago.

Without imposing strong fines, no one will act.

Those of us who have been to court understand that the judge can just put things off or reach a point where he won’t take your story for fact any longer.

The judge will simply impose a fine and say pay or the fine worsens.

Pay or you lose your right to operate.

Pay or you lose your business.

Pay and correct your problems or you will ultimately be closed down.

The city is at the point where actions speak much more loudly than threats or words.

The Lynnway still stinks.

The city must change the situation – and fast or it loses all credibility.

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