Get your filthy paws off the doggone floor, Fifi!
Pooches are in the doghouse at a ritzy new Upper West Side rental tower — where management has decreed that resident pups be physically carried across the lobby rather than walked across the gleaming white marble floor.
“They’re concerned the dogs are going to urinate or pass stool, so I think that’s their excuse,” renter Joe Ventel said Saturday of the daffy doggie decree at the 54-story Hawthorn Park on West 62nd Street.
“I thought it was silly. Usually the dogs are well-trained, especially the small dogs,” said Ventel, 63, who cradled his adorable tan and white Shih Tzu, Bianca, in his arm as he wondered aloud over the “only in New York” doggie decree.
The leases at Hawthorn Park — a gleaming, 339-unit building where one-bedrooms start at $5,000 a month — ban dogs over 15 pounds, as is common in Manhattan luxury buildings, which also often ban dogs altogether.
But Hawthorn Park’s puppy-portage proclamation has dog-loving residents scratching their heads.
The lease specifies only that dogs weigh less than 15 pounds — but management and lobby personnel give any errant dog owners a firm “Paws up!” should Fido try to pad his way across the ornate expanse, according to residents.
And even though they’re up off the ground in their owners’ arms, dogs aren’t even allowed to use the regular elevators.I thought it was silly. Usually the dogs are well-trained, especially the small dogs… If you’re going to walk your dog, you also have to use the service elevator.
- Joe Ventel, building resident
“If you’re going to walk your dog, you also have to use the service elevator,” Ventel noted.
Once in the service elevators, it’s paws-down again, residents say.
One non-dog-owning resident, who asked not to be named, said that’s not the only crazy rule in the new, under-construction building, which is owned and managed by mega-developer Glenwood Management.
“I had a plant in the hallway for two minutes and was told it was an obstruction,” she griped.
Glenwood, which manages and/or owns two dozen luxury residences in Manhattan and Riverdale in The Bronx, did not return calls requesting comment.
Not all dog owners poo-pooed the hound-hoisting edict, which was first reported by the news site West Side Rag.
“One of our dogs was recently attacked by a pit bull in the hallway while we were living in Dallas,” said one resident who owns two miniature dachsunds, Deeter and Decker.
“If owners were required to carry their dogs rather than let them roam free, that never would have happened,” said the resident, who asked his name not be used.
Mostly, though, the dog owners grin and bare it.
“It’s the rule, and I obey rules as long as I feel they’re reasonable,” said the owner of a 9-year-old Bedlington terrier named Baxter. “They say carry him, so I will,” the woman, who asked her name not be used, said of her well-groomed white puff-ball.
Of those who complain of the rule, she added, “I think they’re spoiled! Some people like to complain.”
The wacky rule is just the latest imposition on city dog owners, who must brave weight limits and even co-op board personality tests to keep their fuzzy companions.
A canine crackdown in one Upper West Side building ended tragically in 2012, when soap actor Nick Santino, 47, euthanized his beloved — and perfectly healthy — banned pit bull before committing suicide after a protracted battle with his co-op board.