VIDALIA — Vidalia residents raking and blowing leaves into city streets could soon face a littering ticket.

The Vidalia Board of Aldermen discussed passing an ordinance during its Tuesday meeting prohibiting blowing leaves into the street, but City Attorney Jack McLemore said he believes that ordinance is already in place.

McLemore said he would check the city’s code of ordinances to make sure.

Street and Sanitation Superintendent Lee Staggs said residents blowing leaves into the street puts “undue pressure” on the city’s street sweeper vehicle and employees.

“We have to send backhoes out to pile up the leaves and load them up in the truck and take them off before we can even run the street sweeper,” he said.

Mayor Hyram Copeland also pointed out yard debris and leaves from residents’ yards blown or swept into the street end up in drains, clogging the system.

Copeland said commercial landscapers, not just residents, also blow leaves and debris into the street.

Copeland asked Vidalia Assistant Police Chief Bruce Wiley to have the department’s code enforcement officer on the lookout for residents and landscapers directing leaves toward the street.

“We’re not going to write a bunch of tickets right off the bat,” he said. “(But) if we continue to have an issue with individuals or lawn (workers), then we’ll write tickets.”

Copeland suggested residents bag up their leaves to keep them off the street.

In other news from the meeting:

4The board approved a lease with Desai Hotel Group for three acres on the riverfront south of Promise Hospital to tconstruct a hotel.

The Desai Hotel Group owns and operates the Holiday Inn Express, which opened in July on Canal Street in Natchez.

Residents have 30 days to protest the lease before it is finalized.

4Vidalia Conference and Convention Center Director H.L. Irvin announced the center has contracted with Jim Anderson, former general manager of Monmouth in Natchez, to be the center’s food and beverage consultant.

Anderson will be the center’s official caterer. The center will receive 85 percent of revenue from Anderson’s catering business — Spice Thyme Catering — for jobs inside the center and 75 percent for jobs outside the center.

That fee covers the use of the kitchen and other expenses, Irvin said after the meeting. Irvin said Anderson will also be paid a small salary, but that figure has not been decided yet.

Irvin said the center has been searching for a caterer for five years. Many other convention centers in the region have their own caterers, he said.

“A lot of people who come in (for events) just don’t want to fool with getting their own caterer,” he said.

Anyone wishing to use their own caterer can still do so, Irvin said, so long as the caterer meets specific criteria, which includes having catering and worker’s compensation insurance, tax identification, a business license and other requirements.