Wildlife officers nab West Bank litterbug, 71

CELINA - A 71-year-old Celina man was fined and put on probation in August for repeatedly littering beer bottles near the shores of Grand Lake in West Bank Park.

Jerald Schulze was sentenced to a year of community control sanctions and 10 days in jail, suspended, and fined $100 plus court costs for one count of stream littering, a third-degree misdemeanor.

The case began over the summer when Mercer County wildlife officer Brad Buening noticed an unusual number of 16-ounce aluminum Budweiser beer bottles littered along the west side of Grand Lake in West Bank Park, he told The Daily Standard.

He drove around the area and collected all the litter, which consisted of mostly the aluminum beer bottles. He then contacted Auglaize County wildlife officer Mark Schemmel to assist with the case.

Within about a month of surveillance, the officers caught Schulze tossing a matching Budweiser bottle from a vehicle. They issued him a summons for littering that ordered him to appear in Celina Municipal Court.

He appeared, was found guilty and was sentenced on Aug. 15.

Buening said that over the course of the investigation, he and Schemmel collected approximately 30 to 40 Budweiser bottles littered by Schulze. The area does have trash receptacles on site.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources takes littering very seriously, he added. As a third-degree misdemeanor, the offense is punishable by up to 60 days in jail and $500 in fines.

Though it doesn't happen every day, Buening said he has to issue littering citations often, with the majority of them occurring in the summer.

Buening, a graduate of St. Henry High School, has been assigned to Mercer County by the ODNR's Division of Wildlife since 2018.