Police on Wednesday fined a Darien man $136 after he was caught on video flinging his dog’s poop under a set of bleachers at Waveny Park.
A set of bleachers at Waveny. Credit: Michael Dinan
At about 6:30 a.m. Tuesday, the man could be seen walking his Springer spaniel at Waveny on the large soccer and softball fields, according to police.
He was carrying what looked like a child’s snow shovel and could be seen scooping up after his dog and then tossing the waste under a set of bleachers alongside one of the fields, according to Officer Allyson Halm, head of the New Canaan Police Department’s Animal Control section.
The videographer—a local woman—caught the man’s license plate and when police tracked down and confronted him, he was apologetic and confessed, Halm said.
The man told police that he believed himself to be doing the sanitary thing by removing the dog poop from an open area, yet he had little to say when told asked whether piling it in a place where people sit and stay was an improvement.
He violated section 108-8 of the Town Code: “The owners and/or keepers or any person having custody or control of any dog on any public street, public sidewalk, or public parking lot, or within any public park, public playground, or public school grounds shall promptly remove all feces left by the dog on such public areas and dispose of such feces in a sanitary manner.”
The offense carries a $90 fine plus $46 in state processing fees.
He’s the second person to be cited for the offense since police began to focus on the problem of irresponsible dog owners at Irwin and Waveny. Last month, a woman seen allowing her dog to soil an area near the parking lots at Waveny without picking up after the animal was fined.