December 19th, 2006

Filed under:
Flora and Fauna, Vancouver
11 Comments »

Further to the Spitting Bylaw

Recently, the city of Vancouver announced that they were going to be stricter with bylaw offenders:

Currently, someone caught jaywalking, riding a bicycle without a helmet, spitting or urinating in public is ticketed. If the person doesn’t pay the fine, the city then has to decide whether to pursue the case. If it does, a summons is served to start a lengthy legal process.

Under the new system, anyone getting a ticket would be required to dispute it within two weeks, or a conviction is registered, meaning payment is mandatory.

While walking down the street today, I witnessed a common sight in Yaletown–a dog piddling on a lamp post while its owner looked on (why do the owners always seem to watch?).

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I assume that the ban on public urination is a health issue. Why isn’t canine public urination a health issue?

I’m not being anti-pet here–I’m legitimately curious.

Comments: 11 Responses so far

brem
December 19th, 2006
8:15 am

I think it’s a matter of quantity. My dog pees at most a liter of urine, whereas, I, on the other hand can, no joke, pee at least 10 liters on a good day.

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Laura
December 19th, 2006
8:37 am

Well, it might be sort of hard to enforce a ticket issued to a dog :)

In all seriousness though, what can you do about dogs peeing outside? If anyone could teach my puppy to use the toilet, that would be freaking awesome, but till that day, the grass is the only way to go (well actually, if anyone could teach her to use the GRASS, instead of the carpet in the living room, that would be even more freaking awesome). Responsible pet owners clean up after their dogs, but there’s only so much you can do. I’d imagine this would be an issue of “picking their battles,” because this is one they can’t win. They might make money off tickets but they sure wouldn’t stop the dogs from urinating in public, and they’d enrage a log of pet owners in the process.

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maikopunk
December 19th, 2006
9:08 am

Mental note: Carry plastic bags, and sponge, when walking the dog in Vancouver. :)

I’ll just hazard a guess here, but the public peeing/pooping enforcement is aimed at getting rid of the sight of people exposing themselves while they do their business, and not the business itself. Not everyone seems content to restrict this activity to the privacy of a parking garage stairwell.

I can only hope that the ticket money will go towards building and maintaining more public washrooms (especially in and around transit stations!), but I don’t expect anything that sane and merciful from Vancouver.

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double-plus-ungood
December 19th, 2006
9:20 am

Urine is fairly antiseptic, so I don’t think there’s much of a health risk associated with it. I think it’s more an issue of smell and/or squeamishness. Dogs are probably exempt.

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alice in wonderland
December 19th, 2006
9:30 am

To take the peeign thing one more step - urine is urine and contains bacteria. What would happen if public urinators of all species (to side step the dog issue, what about all those pigeons and free roaming cats?) carried a bottle of water around with them to dilute the fecal matter and urine?

(It would reduce the yellow spots on lawns for one.)

I think maikopunk has got the best theory - peeing in public is just a degrees away from public indecency, as the municipality sees it.

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double-plus-ungood
December 19th, 2006
2:44 pm

To take the peeign thing one more step - urine is urine and contains bacteria.

Untrue. Urine is antiseptic and contains anti-viral compounds. It is usually completely sterile.

What would happen if public urinators of all species (to side step the dog issue, what about all those pigeons and free roaming cats?

Cats pee, but pigeons don’t. Birds don’t pee at all.

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Andrea Coutu
December 19th, 2006
4:36 pm

Why don’t you guys contact the Dog Taskforce, which was set up by the city this summer? Email dogtaskforce@vancouver.ca. They are currently reviewing these sorts of questions. The offleash dog and un-bagged fecal matter issues are probably more pressing, but you can still voice your concerns.

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Todd Sieling
December 20th, 2006
3:39 pm

> urine is urine and contains bacteria

Well, a lot of us is made up of bacteria, too. I really wonder how the city has held itself together before the era of petty bylaw enforcements. I really do find the whole thing saddening, both in that police will have more freedom to use petty violations to nose into people’s lives more, and in that this is clearly intended to be a tool in ‘cleaning up’ the downtown east side prior to the olympics. A year in and I’ve had quite enough of the Sullivan-led council.

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lola
January 9th, 2007
9:17 am

I dont like that

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Janet
May 4th, 2007
8:43 pm

Sam Sullivan is drawing upon New York’s use of the Broken Windows theory, going after petty crime to make the city safer. It worked. They are not petty bylaw enforcements. They are about quality of life. By the way, dog pee is quite concentrated, and can kill the grass and damage tree roots.

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Valley Pat
October 6th, 2008
5:44 pm

Well this is a major double standard that dogs are allowed to piss anywhere in public but people cannot. As I walk home from work I just think that there is dog piss on every tree I see. I am not a “dog person” but I have to put up with it every day. Sure there are much more serious problems in the world, I find it odd and silly that this is the norm that dog piss is everywhere and OK with the masses. I know that it is in the dog’s wolf-like nature to piss everywhere it can to mark it’s territory, yet I think it is filthy and a double standard. - Valley Pat

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