Incident at Willard changes reader’s mind

To the editor:

As a resident formerly ambivalent about the Willard Beach dog controversy, I wanted to share my disappointment after our latest experience. I hadn’t realized it was before 9 a.m. and therefore literally “the dog days of summer.” 

We hit Scratch Bakery, and made our way down Willow Street. Finding a granite bench away from the beach, my 1-year-old daughter and I tried to eat our breakfast sandwich. A little pooch bounded up and snatched my daughter’s food out of her hand. Que sera, sera, right? There was some left, so we ate it.

Heading to the beach, our first whiff was a nose full of doggy-doo, rather than salty air. 

Stashing our Scratch goodies in the middle of a picnic table, we explored the playground. Meanwhile, a gigantic dog knocked down our bag of bagels and proceeded to gnaw on them. If you frequent Scratch, you know how coveted these are – they put a limit on how many you can buy, and they aren’t cheap. 

I was caught speechless, not by the dog’s natural instincts, but by the owner. Laughingly scolding “Fido,” the owner slowed down to ask a fellow dog walker if they could dispose of our trodden-on bagels in the trash, offering an over-the-shoulder, “Oops! Sorry!” to me, trapped in the heights of the playground tower. 

I also saw a canine heeding the call of nature, and an owner forgetting to follow the clean-up code. I do not blame the dogs for any of these incidents – it’s their humans I’m not impressed with.

I would now be supportive of banning dogs on Willard Beach. A few rotten apples really do spoil the bunch. I’m saddened by that – and also bereft of some delicious bagels.

Megan Smith

South Portland

Use a pay-per-tag system in Cape Elizabeth?

To the editor:

I was disappointed to see that yet another community (Cape Elizabeth) is considering switching to a pay-per-bag waste disposal program.  

It is easy to understand why a town would find this desirable – attaching a cost to trash disposal should encourage more recycling and decrease the amount sent to landfills.  

The most common complaints arising from this type of program are the quality of the bags (which are kept cheap to save the municipality funds), bag size (standardized and usually small) and bag availability (found only at certain stores). Perhaps there is a more efficient method to attain the town’s goals and keep citizens content.  

I would suggest, and those I have spoken with agree, a system where the town would issue either stamps or twist ties with a tag on them that must be attached to every bag of waste and identify said bag as paid. 

Under this system citizens could attach a tag or stamp to the bag of their choice. The town could approve and set a fee for several different sizes of bags, each with a corresponding color of tag or stamp.  

These tags or stamps would be cheaper to produce and could be sold in more places around town. People generally don’t like pay-per-bag systems, yet if a town felt the need to implement a fee system and went with stamps or tags, perhaps it would be more agreeable with the constituency.

S. Wyatt Ross

South Portland