Chad,
I know this isn’t the first time a business has been fined for pruning trees “inappropriately.” A couple of years ago one of the Leith dealerships on Capital was nailed with a fine for the terrible offense of not doing what the city thinks a proper job of having its trees pruned.
Why this should be any of the city’s business is beyond me. I wonder if property owners wouldn’t have a good legal argument that the ordinance is void for vagueness. How would anyone know ahead of time exactly how much pruning some city official will regard as too much?
Even more fundamentally, the land and trees are private property. The city ought to have no authority to dictate whether and how trees are pruned.
How much does Raleigh spend each year on enforcing this preposterous law?
