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Pooper Scooper Law Also Applies to Pregnant Teens
By
Jen Carlson
Published Sep 21, 2009
Modified Sep 21, 2009
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By
Jen Carlson
Published Sep 21, 2009
Modified Sep 21, 2009
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If you're pregnant, and your baby daddy is being deployed to Afghanistan, and besides, you were totally going to pick up your dog's poop in a minute... should you still be fined $250 for not doing so quickly enough? The Daily News reports that 19-year-old, 9-days-overdue Alicia Fernbacker of Maspeth was slapped with such a fine last week by a sanitation department agent.
Her story is that she was taking a breather ("I was just relaxing") on her stoop, while waiting for a ride to school and letting her dog out. But after the pup took care of business, she stalled on the clean-up. She says, "I told [the agent] I was going inside to get a tissue. And he told me it didn't matter." Her summons states that she "made no attempt to remove dog feces in a legal manner."
Sanitation Department spokesman Vito Turso says that no one is above the law, but that Fernbacker "should fight it just like anybody else who believes they didn't deserve a ticket."
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Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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