Law and odor

An early whiff of spring last week brought Bangor residents to their local parks — where a whiff of the parks may have sent them home. The winter litter boxes for the canine set are thawing early this year, and the city is forced to step in, once again, and remind dog owners that — surprise — other residents don’t want to encounter their pet’s excrement.

This is a safety and sanitation issue, and a losing one if it is merely seen as an enforcement question. Few people want police to spend their time waiting to hand a ticket to a scofflaw dog-owner caught in the act of not cleaning up. But unless the city, including its public officials and law-enforcement officers act as if the habits of the slob owners are unacceptable, the spring mess will be an annual feature of the city’s parks and sidewalks.

During the last 15 years, Bangor’s parks have undergone a transformation, often at the insistence of parents who recalled what these recreational areas once looked like and could look like again. City officials have gone from merely listening to complaints to becoming leaders in turning parks like Chapin and Broadway, Fairmount and Newbury Street into attractive family spots, places where children can find plenty to do and parents can feel their kids are safe. Except for the poop.

Bangor passed a pooper-scooper ordinance in 1984, but it has not changed behavior sufficiently, and in 1994, the City Council refused to expand the law. It appears that people who were considerate to their neighbors before the law have continued to clean up; those who did not care about anyone but themselves and their darling Fifi, have not. The result is visible in the melting snow all over the city and is particularly striking downwind. Perhaps all that can be done is to appeal to the better natures of dog owners, to ask them to consider, of all the uses of the city’s parks, how their action — or inaction — fits into kids playing ball, families having picnics or folks enjoying an evening stroll.

A demand for dog owners to clean up is not anti-dog. It is a sincere effort by members of the community to deal with an aesthetic problem that has serious potential health consequences. The parks around the city these days are evidence that too many dog owners just don’t care.