Airdrie's Parks department has identified a recurring problem at parks around the city this spring.

Kevin Brinson, Parks Team Leader, says throughout the winter, people use the fenced off ball diamonds in Chinook Winds or Fletcher Park as off leash areas for their dogs.

"You don't have to compete with anybody else, so they take their dogs out there, throw the ball around. Upon doing that, some people don't pick up after their pets."

Brinson says this also happens at fenced off soccer fields like Monklands, and the result is an unpleasant experience for anyone playing sports.

"You've got kids that are doing a lot of sports in there. They go to do a slide kick or block a kick or something, and they come up and definitely have something more than grass on their clothes."

Brinson say that it also results in a lot of extra work for his crews to clean up the fields and diamonds. As a result, the City will install gates on the baseball diamonds so they can be locked over the winter as a deterrent.

"We're not putting up ten foot high fences by any means, we're just going to be locking a lot of the entrances up, locking them off so that you can't let your dog go in them, or if you do let your dog go you're going to have to physically crawl the fence to get it to do it."

The fields at Monklands won't be gated for the time being.

 

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