Government

Banning Dogs from Bristow: Town Council To Seek Legal Opinion on 1934 Deed

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Faced with a renewed effort to ban dogs from a wooded 17-acre property that adjoins Mead Park, officials said Wednesday night that they will seek a legal opinion to help interpret an 81-year-old deed that restricts its use. Town Council members said during a special meeting that more investigation is needed to determine whether, taken together, two restrictions in the deed for the 17-acre parcel known as ‘Bristow Bird Sanctuary’ amount to a ban even on leashed dogs. While the deed says that Bristow “shall be forever maintained as a Bird Sanctuary and Wildwood Preserve, and used for no other purpose whatsoever,” it also specifies “that the public shall enjoy the free use of the property consistent with the purpose described in these conditions.”

“I am not sure dog-walking is not consistent with a ‘free use of the property,’ ” Councilman Kevin Moynihan, a lawyer, said during the meeting, held in the Community Room at the New Canaan Nature Center. Town Council Chairman Bill Walbert agreed, saying of the condition cited by Moynihan: “That statement creates more gray than just the initial look at the deed.”

“As a layman reads the deed, it’s hard not to say, ‘No dogs.’ And it’s hard as a legislative body to ignore the rules. But we are layman reading this deed.

Animal 411

Animal Control: Leashed Dogs Create No Problems for Birds at Bristow

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Regardless of how officials handle a renewed effort to ban leashed dogs from a 17-acre parcel that the town acquired eight decades ago, far more than disallowing canines would be needed to restore the former bird sanctuary that adjoins Mead Park to its original, deeded purpose, according to the head of the New Canaan Police Department’s Animal Control unit. The Town Council during a special meeting at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday will host an informational discussion on the property commonly known as the ‘Bristow Bird Sanctuary’ (its name officially changed in 1986 to ‘The Helen and Alice Bristow Sanctuary and Wildlife Preserve’). A push to ban even leashed dogs, which goes back to at least April 2014, re-emerged in May from the Park & Recreation Commission. Advocates for the change say dogs often run off-leash in Bristow, in violation of a local ordinance, and that the property’s binding deed should be interpreted as an outright ban on dogs. (The deed itself makes no mention of dogs specfically—more on that below.)

Even so, the more pressing problem with re-introducing ground-nesting birds into Bristow is that deer have “obliterated” all ground coverage, according to Officer Maryann Kleinschmitt.

Animal 411

Parks Officials Seek To Ban Dogs from Bristow, Formerly a Bird Sanctuary

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Parks officials want to ban dogs altogether from Bristow Bird Sanctuary, a public park off of 106 that adjoins Mead Park. If the Town Council updates an ordinance that deals with dogs in public parks, then the New Canaan Police Department’s Animal Control Unit could ticket anyone with a dog in Bristow, even if it’s leashed, members of the Park & Recreation Commission said Wednesday night at their regular monthly meeting. “There are plenty of places for dogs to go in town on leash, so it is not like they would be denied recreational access,” the commission’s chair, Sally Campbell, said during the meeting, held in the Douglass Room at Lapham Community Center. The commission had taken up the matter one year ago and, despite reservations from the parks superintendent about how widespread was the desire to ban dogs from Bristow, made a recommendation to the Ordinance Subcommittee of the Town Council. That effort went nowhere.

Around Town

Parks Officials Seek ‘No Dogs’ Designation for Bristow Bird Sanctuary

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Saying off-leash dogs are disrupting wildlife on the public property, town officials are pushing to rid the Bristow Bird Sanctuary off of Route 106 entirely of canines. The Park & Recreation at its April meeting voted to request the rule formally by way of the Town Council. There used to be a “No Dogs Allowed” sign at the Old Stamford Road entrance to Bristow, but there also long has been a dog litter bag dispenser and receptacle, so that creates a mixed message, said commissioner Andrea Peterson. “It should be a wildlife sanctuary, and it was a bird sanctuary and people walking their dogs, it’s disruptive to the birds and especially if people let them off-leash,” Peterson said at the group’s April 9 meeting, held at Lapham Community Center. Some parks officials raised questions about the move.