Dear Editor:
I am writing in response to a recent letter which was sent to me by Mayor Anthony Russo in an attempt to rationalize Hoboken’s extreme and reactionary rules for dog owners. I am a 19-year Hoboken resident, and both a mother and a dog owner, and find the administration’s attempt to pit mothers against dog owners downright insulting! Like most of Hoboken’s dog owners, I never leave the house with my dog without plastic bags in my pocket to clean up after him. I don’t want my child stepping in dog waste (I don’t want to step in it, either).
Mayor Russo has made it nearly against the law to own a dog in Hoboken. The recent rules passed banning dogs from all city parks except for dog runs is a knee-jerk reaction that punishes all dog owners because of a few offenders in a particularly harsh and paternalistic fashion. It’s the equivalent of banning anyone over 12 years old from the parks because a few spray graffiti on walls or deface playground equipment. Or reinstituting Prohibition because some people drink too much. Instead of the city of Hoboken taking responsibility to ticket offenders, they’ve just banned dogs period. What’s next; going to start cutting off the hands of shoplifters?
And as for the dog run rationale, it just doesn’t wash. Small or shy dogs (like my 25-pound neutered male) don’t do well in the dog runs; they cower in the corner to avoid being mauled by packs of bigger, more aggressive dogs. And concentrating all that dog urine, from all of Hoboken’s dogs, into such a tiny place has turned the runs into stinking, disgusting sewers. Dogs come away reeking so bad they need a bath after five minutes in one of the mayor’s glorious dog runs.
We dog owners have just begun to fight. These laws are a gross violation of civil liberties. Dog owners have just as much right to enjoy the few city parks as anyone else, we pay the same taxes. If the city would just do its job and crack down on the small minority of dog owners who don’t take responsibility for their pets, everyone would be happy. Instead, the administration has covered up for its own negligence by passing ridiculously restrictive laws that have no place in a democracy.
Sharon Guynup