Corks

New Weapon in EH Village's Campaign Against Dogs on Beach

By Dan Rattiner

East Hampton Village, which has been seriously dealing with dog poop issues out on the beach for about a year and a half now, has finally taken action.

They are purchasing dog cork dispensers for the five beaches in the village, Georgica, Main, Wiborg, Maidstone Club Beach and Two Mile Hollow. The five dispensers will be hung on a pole directly adjacent to the "pick up what your dog does" sign and clear plastic mitt dispensers already up at each of these beaches. Bathers going out on the beach with dogs next summer will be able to get either the mitt to clean up after their dogs, or, if they find that too disgusting, a cork so their dogs cannot go while out there.

"We hope this works," said Trustee "Boots" Bailey, noting that, up until now, the Village has been unable to control summertime dog poop on the beaches.

The cork dispensers are being purchased from the Jiffy Manufacturing Company, of Venice, CA, which sells three different models, all veterinarian approved. The top of the line model, which costs $599 each, is made of polished aluminum and is guaranteed to be tarnish free for 10 years. It has three different levers and dispenses three different sizes of corks, small, medium and large. You pull the appropriate handle and you get whichever you want. This level of opulence, the salesman from the company told the board, is what Santa Barbara and Palm Beach use.

The next model down is the same thing, but made of steel and costs $499. Atlantic City and San Diego use this model.

And the cheaper model, at $399, dispenses just one size cork, the medium size one, which the salesmen told the Village works just fine for about 90% of all dogs. Only Teacup Poodles or Great Danes have a problem with this. Fort Lauderdale uses this model.

"When the day at the beach is over," the salesman told them, "the corks can easily be removed with ordinary corkscrews, which are available at all hardware stores."

The Village opted for the least expensive model, since the community is watching its pennies these days. And they ordered 10 of them, five for the beaches and five to keep in storage in case the first five get stolen.

And they have also ordered an $85 accessory, which, considering corks cost about seven cents each, has a slot where you can deposit a quarter to get the cork. According to the salesman, this is a new version of the accessory, available for the first time this year. In an earlier version, the slot took tokens. You had to go to town hall to buy the tokens, a cumbersome business indeed. They are offering those early token accessories now for just $10 each as long as they last, but East Hampton Village declined.

"We expect to get the money back for the cost of the corks, the dispenser and the accessory in no time next summer," said Bailey. "There's even a setting you can make where the slot requires two quarters. We'll have to see how the economy is."

The problem with dogs pooping on the beach seemed to raise its ugly head two years ago, when some of the more well heeled beachgoers, when asked by the constables to clean up after their dogs, announced that with all the money they and their dogs were bringing into the community, the community should be grateful for whatever it was they left behind.

That comment was stated at a Village Board meeting that year and it seemed to raise the hackles of the Board. One councilman, Aaron Gretz, said there already were laws on the books that made it illegal for dogs to poop on the beach, and they should be enforced. This was promised at that meeting, but then for lack of manpower, not followed through upon. At the end of the summer when no tickets had been issued for this, Gretz went around with five clear plastic bags over the Labor Day Weekend and put about 40 pounds of dog poop (the bags were labeled with the names of the beaches) on the front steps of Village Hall.

In the election last June, Gretz was not nominated for reelection.

More discussion about the problem raged at a Board meeting in September. Village Trustee Barbara Borsack said the board is "this close" - she held her index and middle finger about an inch apart - to banning dogs on the beach altogether in the summertime.

There was discussion about the dog cork dispenser, including some questions about the fact that some beachgoers might use the corks for open bottles of wine or champagne, but no decision was reached.

What was decided, according to Borsack, after discussing how to give a ticket to a dog, was to have full enforcement of the existing law. It will be "zero tolerance," she told this newspaper reporter, which means that the village will have numerous ordinance enforcers out on each of the five beaches all summer looking for code breakers.

Dogs are welcome on the beaches the rest of the year, of course, along with other animals, like cats, snakes, penguins and goldfish. From September 15 to May 15, there are no restrictions at all. Bring a skunk if you want to.

Hopefully, there won't be a "used cork at the beach" problem at that time.

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