NEW ORLEANS — Friday, Uptown Recycling on South Claiborne Avenue in New Orleans was open and appeared to be doing business as usual.
Just last month, investigators from the NOPD, Louisiana State Police and Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s office swept through the scrapyard after about $300,000 worth of metal beams were discovered there. Security video showed the material being taken from the Five O Four golf complex now under construction at the old Times-Picayune building site on Howard Avenue.
“It’s got a lot of people scratching their head,” City Council Vice President Helena Moreno said.
She wants to know why the NOPD has yet to apply the city’s new “Padlock Law” at Uptown Recycling. That law allows the police chief to shut down a business harboring illegal activity.
“That includes obviously the materials that were found from the golf project and potentially other stolen items that were recovered from that particular business,” Moreno said.
Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s office is working on a new city ordinance that would make it tougher for scrapyards in the city to accept stolen material. According to a draft of the legislation, among other things, it would require junk dealers to obtain a photocopy of the seller’s driver’s license or government issued ID and vehicle license plate number.
It also calls for a waiting period before a dealer can dispose of certain materials. It would also ban the purchase of any storm drain materials or utility manhole covers.
“Disallowing the Uptown Recycling from just taking things from anybody off the street wanting to recycle,” Cantrell said.
Moreno said there’s no harm in the city code adopting much of what is already in state law.
“The real question here is where’s the enforcement?” Moreno said.
The NOPD has not released any information about arrests in the case or what else investigators may have found at Uptown Recycling since the raid a month ago.