Pit Bull Ban on Avenue D
Posted on 30. Nov, 2009 by Hamid Razik in Living
By Hamid Razik
Alex Perez says his girlfriend, Waleska Maldonado, and Blue, his 6-year-old pit pull are his only family.
Because they live in the Jacob Riis Housing Project on 14th Street and Avenue D, he would have had to see his family broken up if he had not licensed the dog before a ban prohibiting pit bulls in New York City Housing Authority projects went into effect May 1, 2009.
Now, animal rights groups are asking the housing authority to withdraw the ban, saying it’s too severe and has caused the euthanization of several obedient dogs, not just the menacing ones the rule seeks to eliminate.
“It’s wrong,” Perez, 41, a one-year resident of Riis who works at a bread factory in the Bronx, said of the ban. “A lot of people treat these dogs like family. My girlfriend would be devastated,” if forced to give up Blue. “Me too.”
On any given day, several pit bulls can be seen being walked by their owners on leashes, a legal requirement, among the six- to 14-story red brick high rises that compose Riis and the neighboring Lillian Wald housing projects. Built in 1949, both developments occupy 29 acres of land, from FDR Drive to Avenue D, East 14th and Houston streets, and house 7,400 residents.
Residents have mixed feelings about the ban, which includes all dogs more than 25 pounds but specifies pure-bred pit bulls, Rotweilers, and Doberman Pinschers no matter what their size.
“I hate them. They’re ugly, they’re dangerous,” Lucy Sepulveda, 52, a 40-year resident of Riis said of pit bulls. “I don’t go in the elevator with one of them. Period. Not ever. Not even the owners can control that dog.”
Eddie Garcia, 70, a 48-year resident of Wald, said he is scared of them.
“They cannot be touched, even when you to try to be friendly, they’re not friendly back,” he said. “They are nobody’s friend.”
The housing authority, which maintains 178,500 apartments with nearly 650,000 residents, says there have been 17 attacks since 2007 in which people have been harmed or where animals have been killed or maimed by other, fiercer dogs. A 12-year-old girl was severely mauled by two pit bulls in Brooklyn in 1997.
Since the housing agency implemented the ban, 113 dogs have been turned in, said Jane Hoffman, the president of the Mayor’s Alliance for New York City Animals, Inc. The alliance is an animal rescue group not affilliated with the city. It, along with the ASPCA, is calling for the ban to be lifted.
About half of the dogs have been euthanized, she said. The other half are in shelters or have been placed with families. Residents who had dogs prior to the ban were allowed to keep them as long as they were registered.
Two of the dogs turned in by residents since the ban were located in the Wald and Riis projects, Hoffman said. Of those, one dog was placed with a family. The other was destroyed.
“They’re devastated,” Hoffman said of dog owners. “You have to choose between your family member or your home. Would you like to become homeless or give up a dog that you have had for years?”
Peter John Zayas, 46, a carpet installer and lifelong Riis resident, said there are many senior citizens in public housing who are afraid of the dogs. Thirty-five percent of housing authority residents are 62 or older.
“You don’t see families, you don’t see a little girl walking those dogs,” he said. “It’s all young dudes. They think, ‘My dog is an extension of me, an extension of my pride and my ego.’”
Paul William, who’s lived at 911 FDR Dr. for 30 years, was walking two small poodles through Riis one recent afternoon.
William said he had had a pit bull for 14 years. After it died recently of natural causes, he bought smaller dogs because the pit bulls were too controversial. He said he would not have been able to part with his dog, Shoshoni, whom he thought of as a beloved family member.
“It’s a select few that ruin it for the whole,” he said.
