Keeping New York Tidy

Not exactly the dog days of August in the Big Apple

To thousands of ordinary New Yorkers, the biggest problem afoot has been not fiscal but fecal. Unlike New York City's money troubles, the spread of dog excrement on the streets and parks long seemed insoluble and irreversible. Last week, after years of fruitless public clamor for an ordinance to ban canine littering, a state law went into effect that would levy a $25 fine on dog owners who let their pets defecate in any public area without cleaning up the act; the law applies to cities of more than 400,000. In New York City, 2,500 municipal workers, from cops to sanitation men, were authorized to issue summonses to any citizen failing to pick up after his pet.

Though most New Yorkers' initial reaction was that the law is probably unenforceable, retailers reported brisk sales of sanitary devices ranging from 15-c- disposable cardboard shovels to $11 long-handled pooper scoopers equipped with a flashlight for nocturnal emitters. One apartment complex unveiled a canine comfort station, whose white-tiled premises were dutifully christened by Toto (ne Megs), Dorothy's dog in the Broadway musical The Wiz. On the first day of the law, only 22 litter tickets were issued; yet to close observers of sidewalks and parks, there was a marked diminution in dog litter and lots of owners were carrying bags. This may only be temporary. A few cities, notably Chicago and Boston, have had some success with similar ordinances. Other cities have not.

Seizing on a story with, so to speak, grass-roots appeal, some metropolitan newspapers and broadcasters devoted more space and time to the cleanup issue last week, than they did to the terrorist attack at the Iraqi embassy in Paris or anything going on in Congress. The New York Post banner headlined a front-page story, CITY DOG OWNERS DOING THEIR DUTY. The Daily News ran daily features on "poopetrators," concluding in one headline, ON THE FIRST DOG DAY MORNING, CRIME IS DROPPING. The New York Times editorialized that it was "one of those delicate moments of social experiment when every citizen's attitude can make a difference."

Radio stations in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore produced solemn coverage of the canine crisis in New York. The situation even merited a full 2 1/2 minutes on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. Whether they played it funny or somber, it was a trying topic for newswriters faced with the basic problem of finding bowdlerisms for two very basic four-letter words.

As with most other urban headaches, the problem is more serious in New York than in any other community. The city's estimated 1.4 million dogs dump some 125 tons of feces daily--not to mention 100,000 gal. of urine. This is not merely an aesthetic and emotional issue between dog owners and doo-dodgers, but a matter of health as well, since the minute roundworm eggs excreted by many dogs can be transmitted to humans, particularly children, and can ultimately affect the kidneys, liver, lungs, brain and eyes.

Some authorities have seriously proposed that 1) all dogs be banned from big cities; or 2) that they be subject to prohibitive licensing fees; or 3) that they be trained to use domestic toilets, as many European pets do. The ultimate answer probably is not stiffer laws or stronger enforcement teams but a matter of public education. It is not dogs that need to be trained, but dog owners.

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