One of the great things about living in San Diego is that the City picks up your trash for free. Well, not totally "free" -- taxes pay for it, of course. But it's part of the goods and services that the City provides.
But like most municipal services, this inevitably creates fights about who's entitled to these services and who's not. So in today's opinion, you've got owners in a condominium complex in Hillcrest -- a hip part of the City -- arguing that the City should have to pick up their trash rather than the condo owners paying someone to do it.
Which in turn means that the condo owners are represented by a lawyer. I'll call his specialty: Trash Law.
Unfortunately for them, the condo owners and their lawyers lose, both on summary judgment and in the Court of Appeal. Here in San Diego, we don't pick up trash (for free) from gated communities like this one. Only from regular old residences that directly abut public streets.
So the condo owners lose. You need not feel massively bad for them, however. It looks like the average condo in this complex is worth around a cool million. So it's not like the owners don't have the scratch to pay for private trash service.
