Scoop the poop?

City leaders are pondering whether to try do anything about dog droppings.
“I guess it’s a health issue,” said Dale Clift, the soon-to-be city attorney.
Spurred by a complaint from resident Tom Zipp, the Ordinance Committee is considering whether to pursue a new statute that would require dog owners to pick up after their pets.
Many municipalities across the country have pooper scooper laws on the books that mandate that dog owners clean up after their animals rather than walking away from the piles of excrement.
Though Bristol doesn’t have a generally applicable regulation that forces pet owners to be responsible, it does have a law requiring dog owners to scoop the poop in parks and on school property.
Clift said it is a policy choice that officials can make about whether to extend the protection given city-owned property more generally.
It’s possible that letting a dog leave its droppings on someone’s lawn is already trespassing and perhaps it could open the dog owner up to a civil court claim, officials said.
But few expect complaints to reach that level often.
Councilor Craig Minor, who heads the ordinance panel, said the real answer is that “sometimes neighbors need to suck it up and confront their neighbor” if they’re unhappy about dog droppings.
But another member of the panel, Councilor Kevin McCauley, said that it can be awfully difficult to approach some dog owners.
He said that he believes there would be a lot of interest in adopting the law.
“I don’t like coming out and seeing excrement,” McCauley added.
“Try going over it with a lawnmower,” Councilor Mike Rimcoski interjected, with a look that made it clear he had some unhappy memories.
Even so, Rimcoski expressed skepticism about cracking down on dog owners.
“What about cats? What about monkeys? What about humans?” Rimcoski asked.
Zipp said that he was spurred to ask the city to take action after he confronted a woman walking two dogs on his property.
He said that after both animals left some droppings on his lawn he asked the woman if she planned to pick it up.
The unknown dog owner responded by asking whether she was supposed to put the poop in her pocket.
The existing city law requires that pets be “under control” of owners at all times, though it doesn’t even specifically mandate that they be on a leash.
Ignoring the pooper scooper laws in the parks and on school property, imposed in 1995, can lead to $90 fines.
The city considered extending its poop-scooping law to include the property along sidewalks a decade ago, but dropped the idea because councilors thought the problem was minimal and enforcement unlikely.
There are more than 2,500 registered dogs in the city, with hundreds more unlicensed.

*******
Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com