Longmont, CO Trash & Recycling: Illegal Dumping (2026)

Section 9.04.080 sits inside chapter 9.04's nuisance code and reads in full: "No person shall throw or deposit, or cause or permit to be thrown or deposited, any bottles, cans or other litter, any offal composed of animal or vegetable substance, or both, or any dead animal, excrement, garbage or other offensive matter whatever, upon any private or public grounds or streets." The ban covers public property, streets, alleys, and parks, and private property belonging to someone else; it also reaches a property owner or occupant who merely "causes or permits" another person to dump, not just the person physically doing the dumping.

Because chapter 9.04 is titled "Nuisances" and defines a nuisance as "any state of things this Code specifies as a nuisance or public nuisance" (§ 9.04.010), illegal dumping under § 9.04.080 is enforced through the same abatement machinery as Longmont's other nuisance sections. An authorized officer gives written notice with "a correction order allowing at least 14 days to make the repairs and improvements required to abate the nuisance" and notice of the right to appeal to chapter 16.30 (§ 9.04.150.B). If the dumped material is not removed in time, the city may clean it up itself and certify "the cost, plus a 20 percent administrative service charge" as a lien on the property, collected through the county treasurer like a property tax (§ 9.04.150.F). The city attorney may also go directly to court for an injunction against a person who keeps dumping, and the property owner remains liable to the city, "jointly and severally with every person creating or maintaining the nuisance," for the city's abatement expense (§ 9.04.150.I).