With dog poop complaints skyrocketing, NYC has a message for canine owners: Pick up your s**t

Complaints of dog poop-smeared sidewalks are on the rise in New York City — and the Department of Sanitation is rolling out a public ad campaign aimed at reversing that stinky trend.

Between Jan. 1 and April 8, the city’s 311 hotline logged 880 complaints about sidewalks littered with dog waste — a 31% spike as compared to the 672 reported over the same period last year, according to data shared by the Sanitation Department.

“You shouldn’t have to do the sidewalk dance to worry about, you know, your new shoes stepping into a pile of your neighbor’s dog poop,” said Jeffery LeFrancois, chairman of Manhattan’s Community Board 4, which covers Hell’s Kitchen and Chelsea.

In total last year, the city’s 311 line received 2,100 dog dump complaints, the data shows. Department of Sanitation spokesman Josh Goodman said Monday that the city’s on track to surpass that number this year — but voiced hope that his agency’s new ad campaign will inspire New Yorkers to turn the tide on the fecal uptick.

Designed to remind New Yorkers that they have a legal duty to clean up after their furry friends, the campaign features digital posters that will run on bus stop and LinkNYC kiosk displays across the five boroughs at least through the end of April, according to the Sanitation Department.

“Don’t Leave –it On The Sidewalk,” blares one poster version that features a photo of a pooch taking a dump near a sidewalk tree pod.

Another version features a photoshopped image of a very good Jack Russell pup using a rake to scoop up poop on a sidewalk, along with the pointed message: “Until They Can, It’s On You.”

The campaign, which is part of Mayor Adams’ “We ♥ NYC” initiative, comes at no cost to the city as the ads were drawn up free of charge by a local creative agency, according to Goodman.

Under city law, New Yorkers who don’t pick up after their pets can be slapped with $250 fines, but that law is rarely enforced. Just 18 such tickets were levied last year, city data shows. The Sanitation Department does not have any active plans to ramp up enforcement of that law.

LeFrancois said he has experienced the surge in sidewalk excrement first hand and welcomed the department’s new public service announcement effort, calling it “long overdue.”

“It’s really mind boggling, the disrespect for the public space,” LeFrancois told the Daily News. “Somehow, everyone just thinks the city will clean up after their dog’s mess. On my block alone, every single day we encounter un-picked up piles of dog poop. And when I walk the neighborhood, be it in Hell’s Kitchen or Chelsea, it is a common occurrence on almost every single residential block in the district.

Though primarily focused on driving down dog waste, the new ad campaign will also feature some posters telling New Yorkers to cut out littering in general.

“If You Litter, You Are Garbage,” that ad states.

Adams has made cracking down on trash and rats a cornerstone of his municipal agenda since taking office on Jan. 1, 2022.

Still, as part of a trend that began during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the city’s public spaces apparently only got filthier last year.

Adams’ City Charter-mandated preliminary management report released in February shows that 89.6% of Big Apple streets were rated to have “acceptable” cleanliness in the 2022 fiscal year — down from 96.4% in 2020 and 93.7% in 2021.

In a statement Monday, Adams said his administration is doing a good job at ushering in a new era of cleanliness, but suggested individual New Yorkers need to step up.

“This administration has committed to ‘Get Stuff Clean,’ and our strategy is working, but we need everyone to do their part, and that’s what this campaign is all about,” he said.