"The city is currently a dog-shit nightmare. There's no other way to say it. Dog owners seem to have taken January's snowstorm as carte blanche to violate an already tenuous social contract: They have simply stopped picking up their pets' waste. Now that temperatures have picked up and the snow is finally melting, weeks' worth of animal excrement is thawing out and new piles are added every day. It's out of hand."
"So who's actually responsible for cleaning it all up? Surely, the dog owners are at fault, but the chain of guilt extends beyond them. It's time to point fingers. "Dog owners know they have a legal responsibility to pick up dog waste, regardless of the weather or conditions on the ground," Vincent Gragnani, spokesperson for the Department of Sanitation, said when I reached out this morning. "It is irresponsible and just gross to leave this behind anywhere.""
"Dog owners can be fined up to $250 if they don't pick up their poop, but it's incredibly difficult to catch an owner in the act of leaving poop behind. Not that the city hasn't tried: Even though DSNY has deployed special patrols - sort of dog-poop stakeouts - in areas with high 311 complaints about dog waste, they were only able to issue two summonses last year."
A January snowstorm and subsequent thaw have exposed weeks of accumulated dog feces as many dog owners stopped picking up after their pets. Melting snow is revealing old piles and new deposits continue to accumulate, creating widespread sanitation problems. The Department of Sanitation emphasizes that dog owners have a legal duty to remove waste and calls the behavior irresponsible. Fines of up to $250 exist, but enforcement is challenging. DSNY deployed special patrols in high-complaint areas yet issued only two summonses last year. The department is considering cameras and noted foreign DNA-testing approaches as examples.
Read at Curbed
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