Niles wages wintry war against poison ivy

BY JORDAN COHEN

news@vindy.com

NILES

City council has decided that December is the right time to act against poison ivy, even though the vilified vegetation does not grow at this time of year.

Generations of parents have warned their children about the perils of poison ivy, notorious for causing itching rashes and occasional allergic reactions to those who come in contact with it. The plant has a status all of its own and gained more notoriety as the title of a popular song in the late 1950s, which encouraged liberal uses of calamine lotion to treat the rashes.

Poison ivy, however, cannot grow during winter’s chill. That did not stop Niles council, which this month passed legislation giving poison ivy a designation that even the state of Ohio does not give it: public nuisance.

Council’s ordinance adds poison ivy, poison oak and poison sumac to the list of “noxious weeds” that fall under the category of public nuisance. Ohio does not include poison ivy and its fellow irritants among noxious weeds, according to Terry Dull, city law director,

“The state, however, does not have any laws that would keep municipalities like Niles from defining poison ivy as a noxious weed,” Dull said.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.