L&I to City Residents: No Dumpster Pools

By now you may have seen this story of two enterprising Philadelphians at Billy Penn. For the Cedar Street Block Party last weekend, Justyn Myers and his buddy Jake Long, decided they wanted a pool. So they got a dumpster, cleaned it out, lined the bottom with plywood, covered the sides with tarps and filled it with water. The neighbors had a blast, apparently.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BIf9O_vjqk5/

The block party even got permits! Well, permits for a dumpster. And, apparently, the dumpster pool was OK at first. But then L&I realized the block party filled the dumpster with water from an illegally opened fire hydrant. Uh-oh.

Now, L&I writes in an email, the 2400 block of Cedar Street will no longer be getting any permits for block parties.

We are not screwing around, Philly. The Streets Department will not issue any future block party permits to the 2400 block of Cedar, and officials have contacted the dumpster rental company regarding its failures to obtain the proper closure permits and to take mandatory measures to protect the street during placement of the dumpster.

In short, the City strongly recommends that residents opt for recreational options that are safer, more sanitary, and less likely to deplete the resources firefighters need in an emergency.”

L&I didn’t respond to requests for additional comments from Philadelphia magazine, but in the statement sent to Billy Penn it detailed the dangers of opening a fire hydrant to fill a pool (or whatever). About 60,000 gallons come out of a fire hydrant every hour, and that’s a lot of water to waste. It also lowers the amount of water in an area, which could hamper firefighters’ ability to fight fires. And opening a fire hydrant too quickly or slowly could crack a water main.

So the real mistake these people made was filling the pool with fire hydrant water. If you want to break the law, you don’t publicize it! Perhaps there was no way to keep your clever/gross idea of a dumpster pool secret, but you have to do a better job. It’s why no stoner in this town has written 10 Great Places to Smoke Weed in Public in Philadelphia (or, when they have, it’s a joke). You have to keep that shit under wraps!

My lone suggestion, if someone wants to try this again, is to try putting a dumpster pool in the Broad Street Median. Then, the city won’t know what to do.

Follow @dhm on Twitter.