RUFF NEIGHBORS
Vagrant ‘trash-toss’ closes dog run
It shouldn’t happen to a dog. A Downtown Brooklyn apartment building had to shut its private dog run because homeless people, housed by the city in a hotel next door, have been tossing bottles into the space, The Post has learned.
Management of the pet-friendly building, AVA DoBro, e-mailed residents about the closing following refuse tossed from windows of the Aloft New York Brooklyn.
“We have received concerning news that there are bottles being thrown from another building and that some have landed in the Dog Run,” the Monday message said. “The police have been called and we have been in touch with the hotel, but as a safety measure we are closing the dog park until further notice.”
The Aloft is among an increasing number of hotels used by Mayor de Blasio’s administration to help decrease the population in the city’s homeless shelters to prevent the spread of the deadly coronavirus.
The policy has infuriated many Big Apple residents and business owners dealing with rampant loitering, harassment, drug use, public urination and worse.
Dog owners in the AVA DoBro — where the average rent is more than $3,500 a month, according to the StreetEasy Web site — were barking mad that their new neighbors had forced the closure of their thirdfloor, rooftop run.
“I was kind of confused at first. I mean, why would anyone do that?” Tom Hale, 24, said Tuesday. “They can see that dogs play there. It’s not an empty area.”
Hale said he takes his 8-month-old Spaniel mix, Lulu, to the run “three times a day, at least, to go run around and play with other dogs” and was “glad that we weren’t outside when anything was crashing down.”
Another tenant, Jennyrose Halupka, 30, said she preferred taking her dog, Walnut, to the run because “the streets are riddled with debris and garbage.”
“I don’t like to take my dog out there because I don’t want him to eat anything off the ground,” she said.
Halupka also said that Walnut, a 1-year-old Border Collie/Australian Shepherd mix, required a lot of exercise and that she didn’t “feel safe” taking him out at night. “So the dog run is very helpful,” she said.
A worker at the Aloft who identified himself as the shift supervisor took a message for the hotel manager, who didn’t return a request for comment.
But the worker, who gave his name as “Robinson,” suggested the homeless residents weren’t behind the bottle throwing.
“To my understating it’s not us,” he said.
“Anything that goes wrong will be blamed on us because we’re here.”
A spokeswoman for the city Department of Homeless Services, Arianna Fishman, agreed.
“As members of the community, we and our clients intend to be good neighbors, and it is stigmatizing and unfair to attribute all challenges in the city to those experiencing homelessness,” she said.