KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City, Missouri, officials are investigating a case of illegal dumping near a building that burned earlier this month.
According to the city's Neighborhoods and Housing Services department, an area at 3222 Troost Ave. is one of the city’s worst illegal dumping sites.
On Sept. 2, the Kansas City Fire Department responded to that part of Troost Avenue on a fire that destroyed at least one business and damaged several others.
Investigators believe cleanup from the fire may have led to illegal dumping, citing what they call one strong piece of evidence.
"All this mess, whoever drug it out here left a trail to that building there right to their back door," Alan Ashurst, an illegal dumping investigator for the city, told 41 Action News Friday.
Ashurst said it doesn't appear that anyone meant to clean up the piles of trash, some of it charred. He estimated there was easily 500 pounds of trash.
"If there was any other plan for this to be someplace else, there would be a dumpster here," he said.
East 32nd Terrace off Troost Avenue is a dead-end street and a notorious spot for illegal dumping. The city had recently cleaned it up before the fire broke out.
Ashurst said the building owner may have broken the law when getting rid of the debris.
"The individual that owns this property owns a lot of property, and they know better," Ashurst said.
Ashurst said he had attempted to track down the owner, Oliver Abnos, who arrived at the site Friday morning when 41 Action News was at the scene.
Abnos told Ashurst he hired two men to haul away the burnt mess but said they didn't take it to the dump.
Ashurst said the explanation "doesn't make any sense to me."
"If you want to get paid, you’d go and finish the job and then come get paid," Ashurst said.
The illegal dumping situation is attracting the wrong kind of attention to an area experiencing a renaissance.
"If items like this are left unaddressed, then the idea is that the area is not cared for, people don’t look out for it, and it’s a place where I can live or set up shop and do abnormal activity," said Andy Hamil, a Kansas City Police Department community interaction officer with the Central Patrol Division.
Abnos said a dumpster will be on-site Monday to get rid of the trash.
