Tons of refuse amassed in the surroundings of the garage co-operatives as a result of unauthorised production activities pollute the water and the soil of the city, posing health threats to the residents, warns the Municipal Preventive Medicine Centre (CMMP). The CMMP warned the managers of the garage co-operatives that they risk facing fines ranging from 2,000 to 20,000 lei if they fail to comply with the sanitary requirements. The supervisors, however, decline any responsibility for the situation and insist it is the city authorities’ job to penalise the garage owners who break the laws. Chisinau chief sanitary doctor Iurie Panzaru says that out of 83 garage co-operatives registered in the city only 13 are actually authorised. Many of them accommodate illicit furniture workshops, car repair shops, or even basements in which alcoholic beverages are bottled. The CMMP official says the supervisors of garage co-operatives are aware of these businesses, but choose to hush up them for various reasons. According to Panzaru, the most part of industrial refuse is spread out here and there, as there are no garbage containers to assist these businesses, and as a result the soil and the groundwater have to suffer. Another problem, according to the head of the department for Environmental and Residential Hygiene, are the stray dogs wandering around the garages. The animals bark at night, disturbing the residents in the neighbourhood. In addition, people risk being bitten by them. The supervisors defend themselves – they say there is nothing they can do, because the garages are private property, and their owners are to blame for the wrongdoings. As concerns the stray dogs, the supervisors blamed the city authorities for the situation. Over the past year, there were imposed more that one thousand fines on the managers of garage co-operatives, totalling about 3 million lei.