(Dan Brinzac)
Doggone it, that bites!
An Upper East Side woman is barking mad after police stopped her as she walked her four little dogs — and then slapped her with a handful of tickets for failing to vaccinate them for rabies, even though their tags showed they had their shots.
“I was furious!” yelped Jin Won, 35, an art collector’s assistant, who was cited. “This is not fair.”
“Now I have to miss work to go to court because of this wrongful accusation,” snapped Won. “This is the most ridiculous thing that ever happened to me!”
Won said things got hairy on Nov. 13 as she walked along East 99th Street with her dogs — Betty, a Maltese, a Lhasa Apso named Mini, and their offspring, Trouble and Lauren.
“There was a police van slowly driving in front of me, and the driver rolled down the window, asking me if they’re all vaccinated. And I said yes,” recalled Won.
“On the tag, they saw ‘2009’ with the vet’s name and address, and they’re questioning me, ‘Why are they not wearing tags from 2010?’ ” Won said.
Won said she replied that the dogs had gotten their rabies shots in 2009 — which is reflected on their tags with the name, number and address of Animal Health Center — and that those vaccinations are good for three years.
“And they said, ‘Do you have the paperwork with you?’ And I said, ‘No,’ ” Won said. “I mean, who carries the paperwork with them?”
Then the cop told Won, “OK, you can walk your dogs, but I’m going to write you a ticket,” Won said.
“I was stunned,” said Won, who was ordered to appear in Manhattan Criminal Court on Jan. 25. The next day, Won went to her local station house with the summonses and paperwork and asked to have the tickets dismissed.
“The receptionist said, ‘There is nothing we can do. You have to go to court,’ ” Won said.
A police source said, “This officer was doing her job in addressing quality-of-life concerns of neighborhood residents.”
Won’s vet, Dr. Daniel Giangola, said Won’s dogs “all got three-year rabies vaccines in 2009,” and added that he doesn’t know of any vet who issues tags with the expiration date, as opposed to the year that the shots are given.
Additional reporting by Jamie Schram