Gothamist76%
Cut the crap: Bills aim to eliminate dog poop from NYC streets 40%
By Jessica Gould0% Christian Santana0%
5/17/2026, 1:30:59 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 25 faulty reasoning types, including Anecdotal, Loss Aversion, and Optimism Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 22.1% saturation with 160 hits. Analysis detected 1,354 faulty-reasoning hits from 724 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 44.8% and a BS Rank of 40% (10,177 of 16,813 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 60.50% of the article peer group.
Local lawmakers are proposing a package of bills aimed at wiping out one of New York City’s most intractable issues: dog waste.
They're hoping to pass a motion called the SCOOP Act — that is, the Safe and Clean Outdoor Ownership Practices Act, which would provide dog waste bags, establish public education campaigns, bolster enforcement in certain areas and launch a pilot program to compost waste collected from dog runs.
The legislative efforts come after dog waste-related complaints spiked significantly across New York City following consecutive winter snowstorms earlier this year.
In January and February, 311 received 821 complaints about dog waste citywide — a 35.8% increase from the same period last year, according to officials.
“We've all experienced it before: that instantaneous feeling of deep regret, right after you step in it, something that's much too soft to be concrete,” Council Speaker Julie Menin said at a rally for the SCOOP Act at Tompkins Square Park on Friday.
The City Council’s sanitation committee will hold a hearing on three of the SCOOP Act’s bills on Tuesday, May 19.
One, sponsored by Menin, would require the Department of Sanitation to install dog waste bag dispensers on or next to its more than 20,000 litter baskets on city streets and refill them at least weekly.
Her proposal would also require the sanitation and health departments to conduct a public awareness campaign to educate the public on dog waste’s negative public health consequences in the city's 10 designated languages.
“Having clean streets and sidewalks isn’t just a quality of life issue, it’s also a public health matter that the Council’s SCOOP Act legislation will help address,” Menin said on Friday.
“Today is about giving dogs and their busy owners more resources, and friendly reminders to care for their furry friends and for their community.”
Councilmember Justin Sanchez’s bill, meanwhile, would bolster enforcement by establishing procedures for the sanitation department once it receives at least three dog waste-related complaints on the same block within seven days.
The sanitation department would then have to either remove the waste or inform property owners of their obligation to do so — and issue $250 violations to those who don’t scoop the poop.
The city has a decades-old "pooper scooper" law, but the rule is rarely enforced.
Councilmember Shahana Hanif’s bill would require the sanitation and health commissioners to develop and roll out a public education campaign about dog waste removal.
The two bills that aren't part of Tuesday's committee hearing would establish a pilot program to compost waste collected from dog runs in city parks, and post signs at park entrances reminding people of the penalties for leaving behind dog poop.
“I have heard every excuse: My dog is small, I forgot a bag, I did not see it happen,” Councilmember Mercedes Narcisse, the sponsor of the sign bill, said at the Friday rally.
“Well, your neighbors saw it.”
People Gothamist spoke to in Brooklyn on Saturday were mostly supportive of the effort.
Melanie Islas, a dog owner, said some of her fed-up neighbors in Ditmas Park were taking their own measures to deter dogs.
“One of our crazy neighbors around here, he’ll put chili powder on his grass,” she said.
“Dogs are wonderful, but people need to take more responsibility for looking after their waste so that we can all enjoy being dog owners and non-dog owners together,” said Ciara Warner, who was walking her dog in Ditmas Park on Saturday.
“I don't want anyone to be looking at me thinking I am at all possibly contributing to this as I am a very fastidious cleaner-upper of my dog,” she said.
Lavish Testman was outside the salon she owns just off of Flatbush Avenue on Saturday.
She said when she confronts people who leave their dogs’ waste in front of her business, they sometimes curse her out.
“If the person has no respect or decency, they will not clean it up whether you put a bag out or not,” Testman said.
But she worried whether she'd be on the hook if dogs go on the sidewalk outside her salon and their owners don’t clean it up.
“I shouldn’t be punished because someone let their dog poop there,” she said.
“Just pick up your poop, man,” she said.
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