Originally Posted by
CardiacKid
The question was; "Are there typically city ordinances or rules for when people can go ahead and move abandoned properties like these?"
I am sorry you have a problem with taking a legalistic approach to the "problem". Try this: if it isn't yours, it isn't yours. I am fairly confident that there are no laws anywhere in the U.S. that give an individual the right to take a bike that is locked on the sidewalk. If your conscious allows you to take it anyway, go for it.
I have no problem with any approach to the problem. The problem is that there is no simple answer to questions like these, morally or legalistically. It's all well and good that you're "fairly confident" that all laws in all municipalities line up with assumptions you've made, but your assumptions are false. The fact is that there plenty of laws written specifically to deal with the problem of abandoned property and it is a significantly more complicated issue than "if it isn't yours, it isn't yours." In any case, an abandoned bicycle will be removed eventually, whether via theft or via tax-fund city beautification or via the OP asking his landlord about it. I think you'd be hard-pressed to convince anybody that a previously abandoned bike being ridden again is less desirable than the same bike taking up space in a landfill, regardless of who originally paid.
A friend of mine saw a person riding his son's bike down the street the other day and tackled him and beat the ---- out of him. He then sat on him until the police arrived. Turns out he was responsible for a rash of burglaries in the neighborhood. He is still in jail awaiting trial. The thief, not my friend.
A somewhat amusing, if completely irrelevant anecdote. I think I smiled.