2-year-old DC girl receives $75 ticket for littering

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Littering is a huge problem in the nation’s capital and enforcement efforts are in place to stop it. We all know kids can get into trouble from time to time, but the city’s crackdown on littering may have gone a little too far.

A piece of mail addressed to a 2-year-old D.C. girl named Harper was found on the ground in an alley behind the family’s home this week. That led to the city to issue a $75 littering citation to the little girl, which came in the mail on Thursday.

“Can you believe they issued a ticket to her for littering?” said Teresa Westover, the girl’s mother. “And Harper at the time of course goes, ‘That’s not good,’ because we know that we don’t throw trash on the ground.”

While Harper has a big smile on her face after spending the day at the zoo, her mother isn't too happy with the Department of Public Works, which failed to void the ticket when she called the inspector Friday morning to let them know that they had issued the ticket to a 2-year-old.

Neighbors in this Northeast D.C. neighborhood along 9th Street do want see littering enforcement. Their alley has become a dumping ground – we found an old stereo, a lawnmower and even a dirty diaper left behind on the ground. But they said ticketing nearby residents, especially a toddler, isn’t helping.

Meanwhile, Harper is counting her pennies hoping she has saved up enough in her two years to pay the fine.

The Department of Public Works sent a statement to FOX 5 on Friday saying: