The pace of politics, one can argue, is glacially slow. The process of involving interested parties, identifying and weighing outcomes, balancing cost vs. benefit, considering compromises, etc., can drag on for a seeming eternity, even over the smallest of issues.

And nowhere is that more evident, it appears, than Portland. Today, after two long years of committee work, city council finally heard and accepted a report that recommends enforcing an existing law that bans trash dumpsters from public sidewalks. Two. Years. To recommend the city enforce a law that’s already on the books—for decades.

According to an introduction to the report given by Commissioner Dan Saltzman, an estimated 300 businesses are using the sidewalks to keep their trash dumpsters—not only blocking the public right of way, but posing health and fire hazards, and sidestepping the normal safety regulations that are imposed on businesses that actually keep their dumpsters on their own property.

Currently, no one is actually enforcing the law. For the last couple of years, that’s been on Randy Leonard, who heads up the Bureau of Development Services, which regulates that kind of thing. That wasn’t acceptable to Michael Mills, the city’s ombudsman, who brought the issue to council two years ago after receiving an avalanche of complaints about the dumpsters.

Speaking in favor of the committee’s recommendation (which requires all new buildings to have built-in space for dumpsters, provides a six-month “education” campaign, and then a complaints-based process for citing scofflaws), Mills pointed out the city’s hypocrisy when it comes to sidewalks.

“It’s hard for me—or anyone at the city—to justify a law that forbids people sitting or lying on the sidewalks while also allowing dumpsters to remain on public space,” he said.

The recommendations are backed by neighborhoods, the Willamette Pedestrian Coalition, disabled citizens who showed up to testify, and even the Portland Business Alliance. In opposition, though, are the city’s Small Business Advisory Council (SBAC) and the Oregon Restaurant Association, who claim that enforcing the law would pose an undue burden on small businesses.

That sent Leonard, who’s recently had a rocky relationship with the SBAC, into a tizzy. “I’m sooo disappointed in the Small Business Advisory Council’s position,” he said, directed at SBAC member Ken Turner, before voting yes. “I would like to have a better relationship with the SBAC, but it’s recommendations like these that make that difficult.”

Immediately after the session, Leonard caught an earful from Turner and Judy Crane, who runs Holman’s and spoke as a representative of the Oregon Restaurant Association. Later, he explained that he told them that he hasn’t considered consulting the SBAC on issues—like with with anti-graffiti ordinance—because of their knee-jerk rightwing reactions.

At any rate, there may actually be some money for small businesses through the Portland Development Commission to help them with construction on proper places to put their dumpsters.

Shockingly, no one seems to have consulted the constituency that will perhaps be most affected by the anti-dumpster law: Freegans, who depend on access to dumpsters for sustenance.

Who will think of the freegans???