LAGUNA BEACH : Council to Consider Bid to Unleash Dogs

The City Council tonight will consider two proposals that could lead to allowing unleashed dogs to romp on a city beach or in a designated “dog park.”

Should the council favor the idea of creating a special fenced park for untethered dogs, it would be the first such park in Orange County.

“We’d be making history,” said Linda L. Leahy, president of Rescuing Unwanted Furry Friends, a group of Laguna Beach Animal Shelter volunteers who are proposing the park. “There is just absolutely no place to run a dog off leash anymore.”

Current city law requires dogs to be leashed on beaches and other public property. City staff is recommending that the council maintain that policy.

The city has been examining its leash laws since January, when resident Nina Arman presented the council with a petition signed by 75 people who believe that dogs should be allowed to roam free on city beaches during designated times. Arman said she has since gathered 400 more signatures on the petition, which calls for the council to choose a beach where dogs could run unrestrained twice a day--one hour in the morning and another hour in the evening.

The beach “is where local residents for years have enjoyed many a romp on the beach with their dogs,” Arman said in a letter to the council. “We would like to continue to do so without the possibility of being cited for taking our dogs for the exercise they need in order to make them better citizens.”

If the council agrees to open a local beach to unleashed dogs during specific hours, a city report suggests that Crescent Bay Beach would be “one of the better beaches for this purpose because it is secluded and is not as visible to the general public.” Agate Street Beach would be another possibility, the report says.

Leahy said she thinks a dog park--perhaps in Laguna Canyon or in a portion of Moulton Meadows Park--is a more reasonable option.

“Once word gets out there’s a dog beach, my God, we’ll have people coming from all over the county,” she said.

Deputy Police Chief James Spreine, who prepared the city report for the council, questioned the wisdom of opening a public beach to unleashed dogs.

“In today’s atmosphere of heavy litigation, I don’t know that mixing dogs off a leash and persons visiting the beach is the most appropriate thing to do,” he said.

Police Chief Neil J. Purcell Jr. said there are about 5,000 dogs in Laguna Beach and that citations to owners of unleashed dogs are “almost as common as (for) parking in the red zone.”

“We have a lot of complaints from people who utilize the beach about dogs running loose and defecating on the beach and the owners failing to clean up after their dogs,” he said.

Unleashed dogs often nip at the heels of joggers and shake their wet coats on beach-goers, Purcell said. Last month, the city’s animal control officer took a report that an unleashed pit bull terrier bit a man at Aliso Beach.

According to a staff report to the council, there are only two beaches between San Diego and San Francisco where unleashed dogs are legally allowed, and both are located in San Diego near Mission Bay. Huntington Beach allows dog owners to walk their pets at all hours on a stretch of city beach between Golden West Street and Bolsa Chica State Beach, but the dogs must be leashed.