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Granny's $100 ticket - for throwing out newspaper

By JESSICA SIMEONE, AMBER SUTHERLAND and JEANE MacINTOSH

Posted: 1:24 AM, December 8, 2010

EXCLUSIVE

What a bunch of garbage!

An elderly Manhattan woman living on Social Security was slapped with a $100 ticket -- just for throwing away a newspaper in a city trash can.

Delia Gluckin, 80, tossed the paper in a bin right outside her Inwood apartment building Sunday morning, only to be ambushed by an overzealous Department of Sanitation agent wielding a citation book.

"I was walking to take the subway downtown and dropped it in a trash can, and this lady in a blue uniform ran up to me," Gluckin told The Post.

"I thought she was going to ask for directions. She said, 'You just dropped garbage in there,' " according to Gluckin.

Matthew McDermott

LITTER OF THE LAW: Delia Gluckin, 80, got a $100 trash ticket when she threw a newspaper away.

"I said, 'I didn't, it was just a newspaper,' and I offered to take it out," said Gluckin, who had tossed her Sunday Post out.

Sanit cop Kathy Castro wrote Gluckin the summons for putting "improper refuse" in a city litter basket.

"She acted as if I had a committed a crime," said the outraged octogenarian.

"I said, 'Look, lady, I'm a senior citizen . . . I'll just take it back.' I even said to her, 'Am I your first customer of the day? I really felt intimidated . . . I have a feeling she just wanted to make her quota."

The green mesh can, at the corner of Beak Street and Seaman Avenue, is marked with signs that read "litter only" and "no household trash."

In a statement, Sanitation admitted, "Being fined for tossing a newspaper into a basket is odd.

"Too many apartment dwellers use the corner litter basket as their personal household dumping site."

Gluckin said she'll fight the fine.

"I was never in trouble with anybody," she said. "I'm on a fixed income; I would have to sacrifice to pay the fine. And if I don't pay in 10 days, they up it to $300."