The Sanitation Department Ranks the Worst New York City Neighborhoods for Dog Poo Violations - NYPOST.com

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"Watch your step in Washington Heights.


The upper Manhattan neighborhood ranked first -- or worst -- in the borough for dog droppings, according to a database of pooper-scooper violations provided to The Post by the Sanitation Department.


Riverside Drive, Amsterdam Avenue and 179th and 160th streets were the worst mutt minefields in the area, Sanitation officials said.


'The city just stinks,' said Megan Winner, 30, a Washington Heights resident who tries to walk to her job at New York-Presbyterian Hospital without ruining her shoes.


'I can't enjoy my walk. It's full of landmines of dog s- -t,' she said."

"I love dogs, but when I see crap on the sidewalk, I don't see the dog. I see the owner."

"It's bad. I have to clean my shoes really regularly to scrape the poop off," said neighborhood resident Rob Thomas.

Click here to see how NYC's 5 Boroughs Stack Up In  Terms of Dog-Waste Violations

Part of the problem could be that there's no place to put the poop, said Michael Messina, 34, who walks his 5-year-old black Lab, Lexington, in the neighborhood.

"There are not as many garbage cans around here compared to other neighborhoods," he said.

"You have to go through an extra effort to pick up the mess."

Glendale, Queens, was awarded the dubious distinction of having the most piles of dog doo-doo in the entire city -- the scene of 41 violations in the fiscal year that ended in July.

The small, family-friendly neighborhood had almost as many violations as all of Manhattan and accounted for nearly half of all the tickets issued in Queens.

The highest concentration of complaints were on Cooper, Myrtle and Metropolitan avenues, all within barking distance of each other.

The prize for the crappiest borough went to The Bronx, where 202 violations were issued last year.

But that was down 44 percent from 2008.

Rude dog walkers were slapped with 134 summonses in Brooklyn, and 18 were ticketed in Staten Island.

Overall, the city is less smelly, with 510 poop penalties in the last fiscal year, compared to 580 in 2009 and 909 two years ago.

Officials say pooch owners are more polite because the city increased fines to $250 from $100 in late 2008.

Pooper-scooper scofflaws must be caught in the act by Sanitation enforcement agents, who are often directed to certain areas based on 311-hotline complaints.

Additional reporting by Lucy Kinder

NY Daily News: Can't go for walk without stepping in dog poop on these streets

Can't go for walk without stepping in dog poop on these streets:

Welcome to the wasteland.

These are the city streets where pedestrians walk in fear - of stepping in what Fido, Rex and Rover have left behind.

Sedgwick and Aqueduct Aves. in the Bronx, Arion Road in Queens, and 66th St., Brightwater Court, and W. 12th St. in Brooklyn have become odoriferous obstacle courses, thanks to pet owners who don't clean up after their furry friends.

That's according to city officials, who don't rank the foulest streets but asked enforcement agents to help the Daily News compile a list of the worst.

The Department of Sanitation is hoping to crack down on the excrement epidemic on byways like these by raising pooper-scooper fines from $50 to $100.

In the meantime, local residents who want to put their foot down better look twice first.

"People walk their dogs and their dogs defecate in the middle of the sidewalk," said Toya Kelly, 37, walking her 2-year-old German shepherd, Saint, on Sedgwick Ave., next to the Jerome Park Reservoir.

"There's a lot of kids around here and kids need to be able to run around," she said.

Even though she spoke with disgust, Kelly admitted she once got a ticket for leaving Saint's poop on the street.

"I always carry bags," she said. "But you run out of bags if you walk him three times a day."

In a stretch of a few hundred feet, a reporter counted three dung heaps on the Kingsbridge Heights street. On Aqueduct Ave., there were two in a three-block span.

In Ozone Park, residents of Arion Road said their street made the list because of the high concentration of pooches - 10 dogs on 1-1/2 blocks.

Joann Orobello, 49, said her large mixed-breed, Rocky, is part of the problem.

"I don't always [clean up]," she said. "Sometimes he goes twice and I don't have another bag."

On Brightwater Court in Brighton Beach, Alla Sirotova, 59, was raising a stink about the situation. "It's so dirty," she said of the street next to the Boardwalk.

Sirotova has a small terrier mix named Daisy and says she never fails to pick up after her. But her job doesn't end there.

"Sometimes I clean up after other dogs," she complained.

City officials didn't single out any Manhattan streets but said blocks that feed into the parks tend to be the most feculent.

And Geoffrey Croft, president of the nonprofit New York City Park Advocates, said the problem in the parks is widespread.

One cause, he said, is the Sanitation Department doesn't enforce the pooper-scooper law in parks. The other cause is more obvious - and the one the city hopes to tackle with stiffer fines.

"There are many dog owners who believe parks should be used as outdoor toilets for their animals," Croft said.

tconnor@nydailynews.com