By CHARLOTTE KANNER

Residents who leave their beer pong tables in their front yards could pay a fine if a proposed city ordinance passes.
PHOTO CREDIT Adobe Stock photo

Note: This article has been edited from its original version to make a correction. The original version said an ordinance under consideration would not allow trash bins to be visible from the street. The corrected version explains that residents must store their bins on the side or back of their homes, but the proposed law does not specify that the bins must be hidden from street view. College Park Here & Now regrets the error.

The College Park City Council has scheduled a public hearing for April 1 on a proposed amendment to the city code that will forbid residents from keeping tables used for drinking games in their front and side yards.

At the hearing, residents may also speak on a proposed change requiring them to store their trash and recycling carts on the side or back of their homes instead of in front. 

The first proposed amendment, which the council briefly discussed at its March 4 meeting, would require residents with tables or surfaces for beer pong and other drinking games to store them in spots that are not visible from the street.

“One thing we’ve always struggled with, one very specific piece of furniture, and that is a beer pong table,” Councilmember John Rigg (District 3) said during a lengthy discussion at a July council meeting. “That has been very problematic.”

To play beer pong, a player tries to throw a ping pong ball into a cup of beer or another drink on an opponent’s side of a table. If the ball lands in the cup, the opponent has to drink the contents of the cup.

Rigg said he has spent years knocking on the doors of students and others to address resident concerns about drinking games in Calvert Hills, the neighborhood where he lives. A large number of University of Maryland (UMD) students rent homes there.

Rigg added that his efforts have not been successful. 

“People really don’t appreciate drinking games next door … on their street when they are trying to encourage their children to have healthier approaches to alcohol than is exhibited by such drinking games,” Rigg said at the July meeting.

During that council meeting, members debated the language of the proposed ordinance and what constitutes a beer pong table. 

“The moment you are using it for a drinking game, it becomes a table that is used for a drinking game and therefore cannot be [stored] in the [front] yard,” Rigg said.

Councilmember Jacob Hernandez (District 1) suggested the proposed change imposes excessive restrictions on residents.

“It is a targeted policy to curb [the] behavior of a particular group of people,” Hernandez said, noting he has witnessed the “un-neighborly” atmosphere that drinking games create. Still, he questioned how much control the city should have over what residents keep in their yards.

Councilmembers on March 4 also discussed another proposal that would prevent residents from storing their trash and recycling carts at the front of their homes.

Councilmember Maria Mackie (District 4) expressed concern that steep streets in her district could make it difficult for some residents to move their carts to the side or back of their homes, so they store them on their street-facing driveways close to the house or garage. 

“We have many people that are on a hill, and it’s very hard for them to be taking it up and down off the hill,” Mackie said at the meeting. 

The ordinance would require property owners and occupants to place their refuse and recycling carts at the curb no more than 24 hours before a scheduled trash pickup and return them to the rear or side of the property for storage by midnight on collection day. It also says residents may use their refuse bins for trash and nothing else.

“The goal is to get compliance, not to be punitive,” city attorney Stephanie Anderson said.

If the language passes, initial violations will result in a $50 fine, with an additional $50 penalty for every day the violation is not fixed, according to the proposed update. 

Residents and occupants who face difficulty moving their bins to the side or back because of hilly or rough surfaces on their property may apply for an exception from the city Department of Public Services.