Madrid is getting tough on anti-social behaviour.
This month the mayor announced strict fines of €750 for dog owners who fail to clean up their dog’s excrement. The fine can be exchanged for a spell of hours cleaning up the capital’s streets on weekends.
The city hall said “there is still excrement in the streets, parks and other places” despite “repeated public awareness campaigns” and the distribution of millions of free poo bags.
It is not just pet owners who will get it in the neck.
The same stiff penalty will apply to anyone who spits or litters public places, including dropping cigarette ends and chewing gum.
The new bylaws are being put in place in an effort to clean up the city.
"I think culprits will be surprised at the harshness of the penalties, so we are going to introduce a system to substitute the fines for street cleaning duties," explained Manuela Carmena, Madrid’s mayor from the left-wing Ahora Madrid party.
The new regulations also extend to people caught washing a car in the street, shaking a rug out of a window, or letting flower boxes drip water.
A maximum levy of €1,500 may be imposed on anyone found urinating in public.
But it is dog excrement which is often the No. 1 complaint of residents. So much so that some Spanish towns are resorting to DNA testing to track offending owners while in Colmenar Viejo a private detective recorded videos of dog incidents for the police who were then able to fine the owners.
In 2013, a Madrid suburb boxed up dog droppings and posted it to the owners. Volunteers chatted up offending owners asking the name of the dog. As most were registered, it was possible to obtain the owner’s address. The mayor there reported there had been a 70% improvement as a result of just two weeks’ efforts.
