Dear New Yorkers: Pick Up Your Dog's Shit

Have you noticed more you-know-what on the ground as of late? The New York Post has! As has City Councilman James Vacca (D-Bronx), who wrote to Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty yesterday to demand that sanitation workers do a better job issuing tickets to people who don't pick up their dogs' poop. Apparently they've been issuing fewer tickets, and this makes people mad. Almost as mad as stepping in shit.

"This issue has absolutely hit the fan," Vacca wrote. "I get complaints on a regular basis about sidewalks and park areas that have become completely impassable because of dog waste."

"Hit the fan"! "Impassable," indeed! In 2008, 909 tickets were issued. In 2011, the fiscal year of which ends at the end of June, officials have issued only 250. City officials say this is due to better compliance, but the dog poop doesn't lie!

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being minor (not chasing your Whole Foods receipt across the street into oncoming traffic when it's blown away by a gust of wind) to 10 really, really offensive (tossing your human waste directly out onto the street from your bathroom window, and hitting an innocent passerby), letting your dog poop on the street and just leaving it is something like an 8, at least. Which means, more than officials complaining to other officials about sanitation workers going after folks who don't pick up the shit, we need the people who have dogs to do the job themselves, or not have a dog at all. Come on, we're all adults here. Pick up your damn dog's shit. That's why you have the dog, and we don't.

Pooped-out city is too darn $#!+y [NYP]