It’s three o’clock AM on Newbury Street in the Back Bay. The bars have all closed, the last revelers having made their way home hours ago. The stars are out. The streets are still.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

The night’s quiet is shattered by the roar of a trash truck backing down the alley. Its brakes squeal. An engine roars to life and mechanical claws grab a steel dumpster, bringing it to the maw of the truck and upending its contents in a cacophony of breaking glass. The arms swing back down and open, letting the dumpster fall the last few feet to the ground with a thud that shakes nearby windows.

Its work done, the truck backs up a few feet — beep, beep, beep — and starts again with another full dumpster. By this time, all residents in buildings surrounding the alley are wide awake, staring into the darkness and fuming.

It’s just another night on Newbury Street.

In residential areas of the city, Boston restricts the hours that trash can be picked up after 7 AM. The city does not restrict pickups in commercial sections of the city, however. The reason is state law, which does not allow any municipality to restrict pickup hours in commercial areas.

The history of the state rule is odd. Boston used to have the authority to restrict pickup hours throughout the city. But 14 years ago, a little noticed law was passed by the state legislature. Pushed for by representatives of the trash industry, it passed with no one thinking through the consequences for residents.

In many commercial areas of the city, no one is bothered by late night trash pickups. Few people live around Downtown Crossing, for example, and it makes sense to pick up trash and make deliveries where there is little residential impact.

But in some areas of the city, such as the North End and Back Bay, commercial and residential districts are right on top of each other, with residents frequently living in areas that are zoned commercial. Indeed, the dividing line between the commercial and residential zones in the Back Bay is the alley between Commonwealth Avenue and Newbury Street. Thus the beeping trash trucks succeed in waking residents on both streets.

In the past, a polite request to a trash hauler was usually sufficient to reduce the offending noise. Of late, however, those requests have gone unheeded and complaints from residents have risen.

The obvious solution is to change state law and allow Boston to restrict pickup times where appropriate. The way to do this is for Boston to request, by home rule petition, that the state law be changed for Boston. I have just filed such legislation and hope to bring it to a vote shortly.

There are many joys to living in the city. There are tribulations as well — parking, the cost of living, a heightened fear of crime, problematic schools. We don’t need to add insomnia to that list.