Fresno City Council is considering an ordinance that would put heavy restrictions on recycling centers

Fresno, Calif. (KFSN) -- The recycling center near Chestnut and Olive attracts full-time recyclers like Allen Humphrey.

"If I go out and hit it every day like I used to I make an easy eight hundred to a thousand dollars a month, easy- -cans and plastic- - 12 hours, 15 hours a day," said Humphrey.

And others like Desiree McNeil, who saves her recyclables at home, and brings them in for needed cash.

"I use it for like when I run out of pampers for the boys like right now I'm bringing cans and bottles in so I can get pampers for my babies," said Desiree McNeil.

City Hall sees a problem with centers like this--believing they are magnets for vagrants and crime.

"There's like a path of litter and a path of crime at the recycle centers," said Lee Brand, Fresno Mayor.

But Randy Morgan, who regularly turns in bottles and cans here, disagrees.

"Actually, I think it prevents crime in a way it prevents people from trying to steal because now they have a means of getting money legally without any problems," said Morgan.

Mayor Brand says police have identified recycling centers as problems, and he supports an ordinance going before the City Council to require recycling centers relocate to industrial areas.

The trouble is state law requires grocery stores to have recycling centers within half a mile of their stores, or move recycling inside. Something Aaron Moreno, of the California Grocers Association, says stores do not want to do.

"We don't want to be in a position where we have to subject our customers to these sorts of folks the city themselves say they are trying to get rid of," said Moreno.

If stores cannot comply they face a one hundred dollars a day fine.

"I am sympathetic with the grocery stores but I don't see a solution, we have to do what we have to do," said Mayor Brand.