Business Is Picking Up for Parisian Pooper Scoopers

PARIS —  Parisians out for a walk with their dogs are stumbling across an unexpected sight these days: city workers handing out bright green canvas pouches with plastic bags stuffed inside.

“I love my neighborhood--I scoop it up,” the bags say.

Pooper-scoopers have come to Paris.

As any tourist knows, the French capital is notorious for dog excrement littering its sidewalks and streets--and for letting an estimated 200,000 dog owners get away with it. Many Parisians see it as acceptable to let their pets do their business wherever they fancy, then just walk away.

“I have developed a sixth sense for navigating through a minefield” of droppings, said Karen Sharpe, a Californian who settled in Paris a year and half ago.

But with the election of a new mayor, the Socialist Bertrand Delanoe, a fresh new breeze is blowing through City Hall. Officials say they are less tolerant of the 16 tons of excrement dumped on the streets every day. The annual cleanup bill is $10 million.

They recently launched an initiative to make dog owners aware of their responsibilities, setting up 100 free plastic bag dispensers throughout the city.

All this comes before a new law takes effect Jan. 1 expanding the current ban against fouling sidewalks to the streets too. Officials say enforcement will be phased in.

On a recent weekday morning, municipal worker Didier Louvet handed out the little bags and accompanying leaflets on Avenue Bourdon, next to the trendy Bastille area.

He knows the battle ahead is tough.

“Many dog owners argue, ‘I pay enough taxes not to have to scoop it up,’ while others say, ‘That is humiliating; I won’t do it,’ ” he said.

Currently, only 70 municipal workers are assigned to issue tickets to violators. Last year, 2,300 fines were handed out, little comfort for the 650 or so people--mainly children, the elderly and the handicapped--who are hospitalized every year after slipping on droppings.

Louvet says there has already been an improvement in areas where the pilot project was launched in late October. He says the 100 free pooper-scooper dispensers are being widely used.

But there is much skepticism.

“I don’t think it will change anything,” said Jacques Beaugean, a dog owner. “Tougher fines are what is really needed.”

The city agrees. When next year’s law takes effect, Paris’ 2,000 parking wardens will be authorized to hand out tickets to violators.

“Everybody must participate--pressure must be brought down on dog owners,” Deputy Mayor Yves Contassot said. “We all want to see it work. The whole political class supports it.”

Some fear that the new law will fail. Professional dog trainer Alain Colonna warns of a backlash from people “who have spent the last 30 years teaching their pets to do their business in the gutter and are suddenly told that it is not allowed. They will find that abhorrent.”

Some also object to the city’s phasing out its famous “motocrottes,” the bright green motorcycles with built-in suction pumps that weave through the streets hunting for droppings.

Contassot says they are expensive--accounting for roughly half of the cleanup budget--and remove only 20% of the droppings.

Also, taking the motocrottes off the streets could help change dog owners’ mind-sets, Louvet says. “They can no longer justify not scooping up by saying it will be done by municipal workers,” he said.

Contassot believes that it will work because it has worked elsewhere.

“In cities like London and New York, the streets are clean because people are made to clean up and get fined if they do not,” he said.

If he’s right, Parisians too can hope that one day they can stroll mindlessly along gazing at the shops--rather than their feet.