Animal Control Goes to Two Wheels
By: Katie Husband, 06/13/2014 05:51 PM, TWC News, Southern Tier
Elmira Animal Control officers are stepping up their patrols through pedal power. The police department just put four officers through police patrol bicycle training. Time Warner Cable News reporter Katie Husband shares how bike patrolling will help animal control officers do their job more effectively.
ELMIRA, N.Y. -- Animal control is getting more serious in the City of Elmira. From four wheels to two, four animal control officers will be riding these bikes to enforce their laws.
"Primarily they will be enforcing the leash law, the defecation, untagged, unlicensed and if we find any violators we'll be issuing appearance tickets too," said Craig Spencer, Animal Control director for the City of Elmira.
The officers recently went through police patrol bicycle training hosted by the Elmira Police Department. The class was about bike safety, care and rules of the road.
"When they're out there riding around if they see other violations they would still have to call the police, they don't have any other enforcement activities other than their general responsibilities, so if they do see other problems they'd call us and we'll respond and take care of them," said Officer William Solt, Elmira Police Department.
The effort is aimed at patrolling areas where the animal control vehicles can't go like here on the Lackawanna Rail Trail and other parks around the City of Elmira.
"We have sometimes violations on that trail that we can't answer just because there's no accessibility to it. So the bicycles allow us to have accessibility to the Lackawanna Trail," said Spencer.
Spencer says they plan to use the patrols mainly on the weekends when it's busy and sporadically through the week.
"It's going to make it a little more efficient on those areas that we can't have access to. Right now we're just going to use it on the Lackawanna Trail and the parks as time and scheduling permits," said Spencer.
It's another way to more effectively make sure everyone is safe with and around your pets.