Public passionate about proposed leash law in Mt. Crested Butte

Excrement issue still under consideration

With serious questions about the efficacy of a new law requiring dog owners to leash their pets, the Mt. Crested Butte Town Council turned down a proposed ordinance that required a physical restraint for all dogs inside town limits. The council members did agree, however, poop is a problem. They said they would continue looking for ways to hold people accountable for the pets that wander.
After more than two months to think about what a leash law would mean to them, dog owners living in neighborhoods from Pitchfork to Prospect turned out at a public hearing Tuesday, September 17 to show their support of, or concern about, changing the town’s code to regulate that a dog under control is one on a leash of eight feet or less.

The current ordinance allows people to maintain voice control over their dogs and still aims to hold owners accountable for allowing their pets to run at-large. That, according to several people at the public hearing, isn’t enough to keep aggressive dogs away from residents or the annoying piles of poo off of their property.
Twenty-year town resident Kathy Hooge was one of the first proponents of the new ordinance to speak, hitting most of the major points of people in favor of a leash law. First, she didn’t feel that a dog should have any more right to trespass on her property than a person does, and she was tired of the feces that are often left.
“We are property owners and we feel that dogs shouldn’t have the right to just wander on our property, because we are taxpayers and the dogs aren’t,” Hooge said. “We should have some legal rights … We’re giving dogs more rights than the homeowners by not having a leash law.”
Hooge said loose dogs had attacked her husband, Paul, four times in the last several years and that a dog came into her yard and chased her cat, which only narrowly avoided physical attack. “It could have been a tragedy,” she said.
Like many of the residents who spoke in favor of a leash law, Hooge enjoys the opportunity for children and grandchildren to play in the street and doesn’t feel they should be subjected to dogs running free. She also pointed out that the town is trying to build a state-of-the-art arts facility and attract patrons who will come, in some cases, from communities that have leash laws.
“After years of trying to get a leash law enacted in the town, because it’s come up several times, we feel you are opening yourselves up to a lawsuit if there does become a tragic accident,” Hooge said. “So be careful.”
Paula Steuer, wife of councilman Tom Steuer, said she had also been “terrified” multiple times by aggressive dogs running loose and now she’s afraid to go outside. “I don’t think the rights of the dog owner should supersede my rights. I shouldn’t have to be afraid to go on walks in my own neighborhood,” she said. “That’s not fair to the human beings; I can’t enjoy the great outdoors.”
Police chief Nate Stepanik told the council that for the current law, or a new leash law, to be effective, the people who report dogs at-large aggressive dogs have to be willing to submit their testimony in court unless an officer sees the offense. And that rarely happens, he said.
Stepanik also told the council he had used the current dog ordinance fewer than ten times last year, with five tickets issued for aggressive dogs and four tickets issued for dog at-large.
And while Stepanik told Councilman David O’Reilly his officers respond to every call they can about dogs running around town, there are only so many places the typically two on-duty police officers can be. Stepanik also pointed out one of those places is often 15 miles away, in Crested Butte South, so seeing every, or any, dog defecating on a neighborhood lawn is a pretty tall order.
That brought him around the question of whether more people would be inclined to go to court as a witness to a leash law violation than as a witness of a dog running at-large. People are often reluctant to go to court, Stepanik said, even in when they’re threatened or attacked by a vicious dog.
During the public hearing, a nearly equal number of people turned out in opposition to the proposed ordinance and heard support for what they were arguing in what Stepanik was saying. And the common threads that ran between each of their individual appeals to the council was that there is an existing law on the books and they didn’t feel they should be punished for the irresponsibility of a few bad dog owners.
Resident Rob Lipowitz, like most of the other opponents of the proposed leash law, said there was already a law in place dealing with dogs at-large and pointed out that as soon as a dog doesn’t respond to a voice command, it’s at-large.
“People who are letting their dogs run loose now aren’t following the existing laws. What makes you think they would follow a new law?” he said. “And then it is a matter of enforcement and I bet the police have better things to do.”
Resident Jim Burke voiced concern over the new law because of what it would mean to his way of life in a mountain community, where he lives with his dog next to an open field.
“I don’t see what additional laws are going to do,” he said. “If this law goes into effect, then living next to a field in a mountain community in a very sparsely populated area where we happen to live, I would have to put my dog in a car, go down to a dog park where I would be allowed to have my dog off leash … I didn’t move here for more restrictions. I moved here for the view, the open space and the ability to have the freedom to live how we feel, within the laws that are currently written.”
Town resident Todd Barnes said he’d been attacked by a dog in town and still wasn’t in favor of a leash law. “I think it’s tough to punish the people who have good dogs for the people who don’t,” he said.
It had been suggested that people talk to their neighbors before asking the police to intervene in a dog-dumping dispute (as in excrement, not abandonment), and several supporters of the leash law said they’d tried. But as resident Michael Blunck turned to address both the council and the public as he spoke, he was told by the same supporters, “Don’t talk to us. Talk to the council.”
But several council members, including Mayor William Buck and Councilman Chris Morgan, hoped people could find a way to communicate with their neighbors and lamented that the conversation had gotten so impersonal.  They also pointed out that the problems with dogs running at-large seemed to be localized in a few neighborhoods.
And after Steve Meredith wished publicly that his condo association would amend its bylaws to make it illegal to leave a dog outside when no one is home (“A lot of people will come up in the summer and put their dogs on the deck and leave. And what does the dog do, it barks,” he said), Buck suggested that maybe the property owners associations are the best entities to deal with the leash law.
“It sounds like there are only a few places where it’s a problem,” Buck said. “That way we wouldn’t have to pass a law that impacts everyone in town.”
Another opponent of the leash law who had missed the public hearing but come to the regular meeting, joined the conversation to share his thoughts on the ordinance with the council and was told by another member of the public he should have gone to the public hearing if he wanted to contribute.
Councilman Tom Steuer, who had asked the council to consider the new ordinance, pointed out that there is “passion on both sides of the issue. Whichever way we go on this there’s going to be quite a few unhappy people on the other side. Maybe we should consider this on the ballot in April. Conversely, we could make a decision tonight.”
Councilman Dave Clayton had his doubts about the effectiveness of a new law when the old law wasn’t solving the dog-at-large problem. “In doing what we’re proposing to do, is it going to change anything?” he asked. “Everyone I heard said basically it was a dog at-large problem.”
Councilman Chris Morgan said, “It’s about community awareness and talking to your neighbors. I don’t know what would really change with enacting a leash law. From an enforcement and compliance point of view, not much would change. My hope is that the community would be a lot more active.”
The council decided not to push the decision off until an April election and instead ended the leash law conversation and opened one about increasing the penalties for irresponsible dog owners. They will also address the excrement issue, but no specific time has been set to take up that discussion.