NICOSIA Mayor Michalakis Zampelas has vowed to clean up the streets of Nicosia by introducing on-the-spot fines for violators of the new citizen’s Guide to on-the-spot fines.
Nicosia residents and the local business community have until October 1 to pick up a copy of the guide and learn the rules for keeping Nicosia and its roads clean, after which violators will be subject to on-the-spot fines of up to £50. The hardest hit will be the many kiosks and supermarkets where merchandise and advertising material has a tendency to spill out onto the roads and pavements.
Zampelas said the aim of the project was to serve Nicosia residents, cultivate awareness for a cleaner capital and provide a better quality of life. The municipality was working to improve the daily lives of its citizens and provide practical solutions to everyday problems, he maintained.
The mayor added that the imposition of on-the-spot fines was not an end in itself but a way of improving the lives of all citizens.
Zampelas said he wanted to give citizens a chance to learn details of the new measures before imposing fines from October 1.
“The method and rate of expansion has forced us to see quality of life as a precious object that must be protected,” he said.
Nicosia has to start looking like a European city, meaning it has to be “clean and safe”. The mayor noted that road safety had to improve in the capital, as well as the situation regarding illegal parking and the dumping of objects in public areas or on pavements.
Violations of the new rules worthy of a £50 on-the-spot fine include: the digging up of roads, littering, dumping objects on the streets, throwing objects in the gutters, dangerous driving, damaging roads and using roads to store construction material.
Transporting animals without protection, obstructing traffic, street selling without a licence, prostitution, pouring water and other liquids on the roads, dusting rugs and carpets or drying laundry on the roads are also offences worth a £50 fine. Polluting streets with dumped objects will cost the conscience-free citizen £20 if caught.
Finally, motorists will be charged £15 under the new scheme for these offences: impeding traffic and unconventional parking in a car park.
Blocking a passage with a vehicle, failing to pay a parking meter or overstaying one’s welcome at a parking meter, and violating traffic signals are punishable with a £5 fine.
Nicosia has just two months to get sorted before the fines begin.
