The question of how to penalize offenders of a village ordinance was brought up during the meeting of the Chataignier Village Council Thursday evening.
Village Administrator Gail McDavid, who also serves as a police officer for the village, relayed to the council a situation where he was dispatched to an incident where a dog bit a UPS driver in the Rozas Subdivision.
“In investigating the situation, the owner, who wasn’t at home at the time but was home when I arrived, said the dogs were out and he was sorry about the whole thing,” McDavid said. “Then I had to get with the UPS driver and relate to him that the dogs did not have their rabies shots, they weren’t leashed, and they weren’t penned up.”
McDavid stated to the council that the village has an ordinance that requires dogs to be in a pen or on a leash and asked the council what is the penalty in violation of the ordinance. “Do we issue a ticket,” he asked. “And, if so, how much is it going to be”?
Mayor Jackie Thomas expressed the need to find out how other municipalities are handling similar situations. “We need to find out after this incident happened,” she said. “We have to make sure that it doesn’t happen again, so maybe we can just find out from the other areas how they handle that and go from there.”
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TONY MARKS