It’s not that he hates pigeons, stressed Ald. Ted Mazola, whose downtown 1st Ward is the home to thousands of them.
It’s just that they have become a big, disgusting mess, and on Wednesday, he asked the City Council to join him in passing an ordinance that would levy fines of $25 to $100 on people who insist on feeding them in public places.
“There are people who come downtown every day with shopping bags filled with bread and other stuff and feed the pigeons,” Mazola complained. “They are attracting huge swarms of pigeons, and they are causing a major health hazard.”
Brent Minor, vice chairman of the Greater State Street Council, agrees and said he has worked with Mazola to get a proposed ordinance before the council to try to solve the problem.
“Just last week under the `L’ platform at Wabash and Madison, I personally saw two individuals get dumped on by pigeons,” Minor said. “That’s not going to make for a very nice day.”
Particularly dangerous pedestrian spots are the Daley Plaza, where huge flocks of the red-eyed, head-pumping pigeons roam, and the touted “world’s busiest street corner” at State and Madison Streets, where sides of buildings have taken on a whitish hue from bird droppings.
“It is terribly unsightly and a downright health hazard,” Minor complained.
Mazola conceded the problem of pigeon stool is probably not one of the more pressing ones in Chicago, but “there are a lot of issues, big and small, that aldermen have to deal with in the course of their duties.”
He said if pigeon feeders stop, pigeons will either die off naturally or move to other areas where they can engage in more natural feeding habits, like dining on bugs and berries.
“We’re not trying to outlaw berries, you know,” Mazola said. “And you can still have a bird feeder, but only on your own property.”
Minor said there are about a dozen habitual pigeon feeders who frequent the Loop, and when he and the State Street Council have asked police to stop them, the police have responded that no laws are being broken.
“Now, if they have an ordinance, they can warn the pigeon feeders and get them to stop,” he said.
To avoid any charges of pigeon discrimination, Mazola’s proposed ordinance bans the public feeding not only of birds but of all “wild feral mammals,” and that, he said, includes squirrels. Animal and bird feeding is outlawed in Chicago parks, he said, and his proposed law would extend to all public sidewalks, plazas and streets.
Mayor Richard Daley, a noted tree lover, refused to get drawn into the pigeon-stool controversy, sighing deeply when asked about the Mazola proposal before responding, “I’m a bird lover. I like birds.”
Saying only that he would “take a look at it” before the proposal goes to the Transportation and Public Way Committee, Daley, instead, came up with his own quality-of-life ordinance at the brief City Council meeting.
Daley’s proposed ordinance would crack down on truck owners who allow graffiti to remain on their vehicles for longer than 60 days. Truck owners whose vehicles have been tagged by vandals would be given two 30-day warning notices by police before facing fines of $50 for each violation.
Daley has been waging a well-publicized war on graffiti for more than a year. He said vandalized trucks bring visual blight into every neighborhood.
He said his goal is to halt the spread of graffiti in Chicago before the problem becomes as great as it is in New York City.
“Out there, if you stand there long enough, they put it on you,” Daley said.
The council also received but delayed action on the mayor’s proposed $3.4 billion 1994 budget. It also authorized the city purchasing agent to award non-bid contracts of up to $5 million for emergency repairs on the 106th Street bridge, which was closed after being struck Nov. 4 by a Polish freighter.
The council wrapped up its meeting in an hour, preventing tardy Ald. Dorothy Tillman (3rd) from introducing a resolution asking Chicago Board of Education President D. Sharon Grant to resign because she has withdrawn her child from the public schools. Tillman also said Grant should quit because she showed up next to Gov. Jim Edgar when he announced his re-election bid.
