Metro
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No more dog poop fine signs

The city is scooping up its curb your dog signs.

All reminders to pick up after your pooch are being taken down by the DOT, which has dumped 1300 signs this year—saying they are mostly faded and illegible.

The Sanitation Department, who owns the signs, says they won’t be replaced—since the agency stopped putting up the new signs ten years ago due to budget cutbacks.

Dog feces on sidewalks were outlawed in 1978—and there’s a $250 penalty for those who ignore the law, according to DSNY spokesman Vito Turso.

But DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan told the Post the city’s streets won’t go to the dogs. “New Yorkers know they need to clean up after their dogs, so I don’t foresee any problems,” she said.

Not all city residents agreed. Physical therapist Maureen Villapando, 35, said the sign takedown will lead to more feces on sidewalks, causing her elderly patients to slip.

“I’m opposed to this,” she said. “People need to be made aware that they should clean up after their dogs. I’m concerned they might slip on it and hurt themselves.”

And graphic designer Jane Winter, 58, said the signs are a necessary part of urban life. “People need reminders,” she said. “The sign make it more official.”

But Michael Brandow, an author and expert on New York’s poop scoop laws, said the signs have never impacted behavior—and their demise is no great loss.

“City life was improved by using peer pressure to put in place a custom that was followed voluntarily,” he said. “The law itself, like the rusty old signs nobody notices anymore, is more symbolic than anything else.”

The removal of the signs is part of a larger DOT initiative to pull 60,000 signs off the city’s streets to nix sign clutter, such as no-honking and recycling signs. The initiative also includes making those that stay clearer, such as parking signs.