“Eat, Spit and Be Happy.” That’s the motto of ConAgra’s David Sunflower Seeds. That also apparently is the motto of most people who sit in city park bleachers as evidenced by the abundant piles of sunflower seed shells literally left in the dust.
Every time I go to one of my sons' baseball games in Burbank, I cringe knowing that I have to sit in the bleachers, desperately searching for a clean place to put my rear and feet so that my body doesn’t touch the shells that fly out of people’s mouths.
The main culprit is people who selfishly think that spitting out food debris is okay, assuming city workers will clean up their mess. I observe many people, from senior citizens to young kids, spitting out their shells all over the place. The benches and the areas underneath the bleachers are blanketed with them.
I was told by one city official that the habit of spitting out shells is an ingrained cultural trait, as old as the game of baseball.
However, what is wrong with posting signs asking people to use the park trash cans? Another city representative said that the problem with posting a sign is that there are too many signs already posted. However, in many areas there isn’t a single sign around.
