Name-and-shame to stop objects being thrown from city high-rises
Print Edition
THE city government has launched a name-and-shame campaign against people who throw objects out of high-rise buildings.
This comes after an elderly man died in Yangpu District last month after being struck on the head by a bottle hurled from an apartment.
And last week a man was detained in Jing’an District on suspicion of throwing excrement and urine down on neighbors.
In a new survey, a third of respondents said they were aware of people throwing objects from high-rises in their neighborhood.
Now cases of this anti-social behavior, collected with the help of property management companies and residents’ committees, will be exposed on local media, said the city department responsible for promoting good manners in society.
Culprits will be named and their misdemeanors publicized in newspapers and television broadcasts.
“We encourage citizens to be more proactive in reporting irresponsible littering by their neighbors,” said officials.
A third of the 960 people who took part in a survey by the Shanghai Morning Post said this happened in their neighborhoods, with a fifth describing the phenomenon as “alarming” or “very alarming.”
Many of those polled called for stepping up punishments and installing more surveillance cameras.
However, tougher punishments seem unlikely soon.
“There has been talk about raising the bar of punishments after the increase in harmful cases in recent years, but generally it’s not considered to be so dangerous yet,” said He Kaiping, an official with the department promoting good manners.
He said there are no specific regulations for this offense in China, with those responsible punished according to the consequences of their actions.
For most cases, offenders are given only reprimands or warnings or small fines for violation of property management rules.
In contrast, in New York, throwing an object from a window — intentional or not — can lead to a fine up to US$1,000.
And in Hong Kong, allowing objects to be dropped that may cause harm is considered a criminal offense.
However, many observers say the real problem in punishing offenders is a lack of evidence or finding witnesses to testify.
In April, the owners of 26 apartments in a neighborhood in Minhang District were ordered to pay a neighbor 1,700 yuan (US$275) collectively after a falling flowerpot smashed the windscreen of his car.
Surveillance cameras offer a solution to collecting evidence, and in recent years more and more high-rise neighborhoods have installed them to monitor objects being thrown from buildings.
Among those is Jinzhong Garden, an 18-year-old neighborhood along Zhongshan Road, in Huangpu District.
“Previously, this was a really big problem, but we installed cameras in February and have seen a drastic decline,” said Jiang Wanfu, vice director of the neighborhood residents’ committee.
Shanghai has more than 30,000 building that are more than 24 meters tall.
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