On Wednesday this week, San José, Costa Rica municipal police closed the Levi’s store in the downtown retail area for a 24-hour period, reported local media.

The closure was due to the store failing to comply with set hours for public trash pick-up along downtown’a Central Avenue, a highly transited dense commercial area.

The store was given written notice about the time-frame for curbside trash pickup, which establishes that businesses can put their trash out between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m., as they had regularly been putting out their trash outside of those hours.

After the store allegedly continued to take trash out in the early morning hours, the municipal ordered the one-day closure, said local media.

The move is part of a tightening up of businesses in downtown San José, and part of the municipality’s increased attempts to keep the area cleaner. The municipality said they would be imposing closures and possibly even sanctions on businesses that repeatedly fail to comply with municipal orders.

Mayor Johnny Araya, who was interviewed by Diario Extra, a Costa Rican daily, said ”The Municipality of San José is making an effort to improve public cleaning services, and there are a number of actions being taken including buying garbage trucks, hiring sweepers, and starting to clean some of the downtown streets.”

Araya emphasized that businesses must comply with set garbage pick-up times to avoid dogs and indigents from searching through the bags and leading to trash getting strew about the streets.

The municipality’s actions are to seek greater compliance with the Organic Environmental Law and the Regulation on Management of Ordinary Solid Waste, said Araya to Diario Extra. The paper was unable to get a comment from the store manager by phone.