Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano: Take Out Your Own Trash

Starting November, some Yonkers businesses will have to find a new way to get rid of their garbage.

City officials are ending a ten year old program that collected trash five days a week, twice per day, at no cost to businesses. Brian Ko's restaurant, Brian's Kitchen, is one of the places that'll be effected by this change. He says running his restaurant is already hard enough.

"Business is very slow these days. Everybody is struggling," he said.

The free trash collection was an effort to help businesses in the city's downtown-waterfront district. Now the companies will have to pay for a new trash service.

"Now we have to look for another, private company," Ko said. "The price [to remove garbage] is going up."

Mayor Spano says eliminating the trash service will save city taxpayers $300,000 per year.

"Our administration continues to take action and demonstrate to City's taxpayers that we are committed to addressing the fiscal crisis which threatens the City's long-term solvency," he said.