Liar, Liar, Poop on Fire
In Highland Park, not picking up your dog's poop is a $500 misdeameanor.
That's understandable - poop is nasty, and lots of people don't want it on their yard (though in reality it's not that big a deal and it fertilizes your yard, but whatever).
So far, so good.
But the stated reason for the ordinance is that "dog waste endangers the health of the community and transmits disease." Now admittedly, when fecal matter gets into drinking water, bad things like cholera happen. But our drinking water comes from a lake on the other side of town; Highland Park's dog poop isn't getting in anyone's drinking water. More importantly, this is 2006 in the United States and our water is treated to kill bacteria.
It kind of hacks me off that in a situation such as this where there's no reason to lie, the town still felt that it needed to in order to pass the ordinance.
That's understandable - poop is nasty, and lots of people don't want it on their yard (though in reality it's not that big a deal and it fertilizes your yard, but whatever).
So far, so good.
But the stated reason for the ordinance is that "dog waste endangers the health of the community and transmits disease." Now admittedly, when fecal matter gets into drinking water, bad things like cholera happen. But our drinking water comes from a lake on the other side of town; Highland Park's dog poop isn't getting in anyone's drinking water. More importantly, this is 2006 in the United States and our water is treated to kill bacteria.
It kind of hacks me off that in a situation such as this where there's no reason to lie, the town still felt that it needed to in order to pass the ordinance.
4 Comments:
To be fair, groundwater contamination is not the only way germs from dogpiles can pass into humans. Direct contact will do just as well or even better- like, for instance, stepping in the stuff.
Yeah, if you lick your foot after you step in it.
They didn't say "We want to ban it because poop is nasty" because that doesn't pass the test of a reasonable law.
The purpose of the government is to protect our civil liberties, not prevent icky things from being stepped on.
So they made up some "It's for your own good" dogshit. (Pardon the pun ^.^)
And it also pisses me off that my dog could take a dump directly in the middle of a bunch of turds from local wildlife and I'd still get a fine! x.X
And how enforcible is this law? Are thoy going to set people up with binoculars?
Argh. This law doesn't work on so many levels.
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