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The droppings and brown streaks smeared across sidewalks all over the city mean one thing: New York is losing its battle against dog poop.
“It’s very horrible,” said Kinga Sarmento, a dog walker with 15 clients around the Upper West Side. “People walking, sometimes on the phone, and they don’t pay attention. Their dog is doing their stuff… and they walk away.”
New Yorkers who decline to pick up their dog’s feces can be fined $250. But the rule is rarely enforced. City data shows only 18 tickets were issued in 2022 for “failure to pick up canine waste.” That’s down from 72 tickets issued for the violation in 2019.
During a City Council hearing earlier this month, sanitation officials conceded the rule isn’t working.
“We don’t have an effective strategy [for dog poop],” Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch said during the hearing.
New York City implemented its pooper scooper law in 1978, and was one of the first major U.S. cities to adopt such a rule. But more than four decades later, officials said many New Yorkers are no longer following the law because enforcement is spotty and violators find ways to dodge tickets.
“It’s certainly not for a lack of trying,” said Tisch. “When our enforcement stopped someone for that violation, oftentimes the person will say they’re not carrying their ID. And then do you really want to bring them into the precinct for it? I mean, our policy has been no.”
Tisch said the Department of Sanitation plans to launch an outreach campaign to remind New Yorkers to pick up after their dogs.
Public data suggests the city’s dog population boomed during the pandemic. More than 100,000 dog licenses were issued in 2020, up from roughly 72,000 in 2019. Health department officials believe the actual number of dogs in the city is five times higher than the official count.
More dogs means more feces, to the tune of an estimated 74 tons of poop per day — or 27,000 tons annually, previous reporting from Gothamist found. The result is a city seemingly awash in canine poop.
South Bronx resident Roland Lopez said he regularly sees dog walkers leave feces outside his home.
“These people, they come with their dogs, they let them defecate, then the owners have to clean up,” said Lopez, who sits on the Bronx’s Community Board 2.
Maria Torres, a member of the same community board, said she notices children in her neighborhood of Hunts Point walking their family dogs and not picking up after them.
“They’re young people. They may not be equipped and remember to take everything that they had to throw out, and things will happen,” Torres said. “Do we want to summons a 15-year-old or a 12-year-old, trying to learn the responsibility of walking a pet?”
While piles of sidewalk poop are gross, there are also public health reasons to curb the dog poop epidemic: The feces fuel the city’s rat infestation.
Councilmember Sandy Nurse, who chairs the sanitation committee, said it’s important to teach dog owners that their pet’s waste is a rodent feast.
“Rats love to eat dog poop, and that really freaks people out,” Nurse said at the hearing.
Education and enforcement are key to poop-free sidewalks, said Councilmember Erik Bottcher, who launched an outreach campaign last year in his district on Manhattan’s West Side that features signs that read “There is no poop fairy.”
“People need to know if you don’t pick up after your dog, you’re going to get a ticket,” said Bottcher. “Part of the reason that this delicate balance of urban living works is because there’s a set of norms that people subscribe to and abide by. This needs to be one of those.”
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