LONGMEADOW — At the Longmeadow Select Board’s March 2 meeting, a public hearing determined two dogs on Anthony Road were a nuisance.
A dog is defined as a nuisance if it is found to have a vicious disposition, engages in excessive barking, chases cars, runs in packs with other dogs, breaks or damages shrubbery, damages gardens, bites or theatens a person or persons or enters unrestrained onto the property of persons other than the owner or keeper of the dog.
On Jan. 13, Pioneer Valley Yacht Club Vice Commodore Mary Breeding filed the request for a hearing against the dogs, who are both golden retrievers, for instances that date back nearly 10 years.
Breeding said in the request that the two dogs have “continuously escaped their yard and roamed freely on the PVYC property and the conservation area on a regular basis … the dogs have acted aggressively toward children and adult members of the PVYC on numerous occasions.”
The request added that Animal Control Officer Marty Caramante has cited and fined the owners for having “unlicensed and unrestrained dogs on too many occasions to count” and that Breeding has a stack of at least 100 complaints filed with the Longmeadow Police Department, dating back to 2016.
The Select Board included the police logs for each complaint in its March 2 agenda, which is 101 pages in length, with the first complaint being on May 23, 2016, and the latest on Jan. 3 of this year.
Attorney Stephen Chaplin explained that under state law in Massachusetts, the town’s board is the hearing authority for investigating any complaint that arises relative to the behavior of a dog. Longmeadow does have bylaws that define the process if a dog is defined as a nuisance or dangerous.
“If the board finds that there’s some measure of guilt, so that the dog or dogs fits within the nuisance definition or the dangerous definition, then we proceed to a second phase, which you could liken to a sentencing phase, where the board would order remedial measures upon the owner of the dog to ameliorate the impact that the dogs have had on the community,” Chaplin said.
Breeding and Caramante attended the meeting, along with PVYC Controller Ed Weagle. Because these hearings operate as court hearings, the three were sworn in for their testimony.
“They growl, they charge at cars when our members pull up to the club,” Breeding said. “You can go there, probably, just about any day of the week and see at least one of the dogs on the property.”
She said the dogs scare their members, with some not being able to get out of their cars, and have damaged at least one car by jumping up. She included that other individuals in the community take their own dogs to the park, for example, and have found the dogs to be aggressive, with one report of another dog being bit.“My biggest concern is the safety of people in the club and in the area,” Breeding said. “Especially now with the new town park, I can only see an increase in the number of community members who are going to be going down to that area and the dogs are just running loose all the time … my biggest concern is that someone is going to get hurt.”
Caramante said the owner’s fence is falling apart and not tall enough. Caramante added that one of the dogs would scare someone who’s “not a dog person,” because she has been on the property and around the dogs and hasn’t been bit. She said she doesn’t believe either dogs are dangerous, but does think they are nuisance dogs.
“One of them barks loudly, kind of appears to be aggressive,” Caramante said. “I can just walk past it and say ‘oh, calm down,’ and it doesn’t bite me or anything, but I’m a dog lover. To somebody who’s not okay with that, it looks like this big dog, loudly barking and coming at you.”
She said she has been ticketing the owners with bylaw violations with no avail, with no payment for the fines. The dogs were briefly licensed in 2024 but have not been since.
Select Board member Vineeth Hemavathi said that by looking at the police logs, it’s mind-boggling that this could go on for so long and that there is such a level of disregard for the town’s rules and processes.
“The fact that these dogs haven’t been licensed for so many years, just something basic like that, that we expect of every dog owner, that’s not even being accomplished, is very concerning,” Hemavathi said. “I will say too that I have concern that no matter what we even order tonight, if they even comply with that, and then where does that lead us to?”
Chair Josh Levine said there have been cases in the past where it’s clear when a dog is dangerous, which isn’t the case here. He said that the evidence does show the dogs being a nuisance to the neighbors and people on their own private property being approached, barked at and made to feel scared. He said that with a nuisance dog designation, the Select Board can be more creative with the approach to mediate it.
Select Board member Andrew Lam said the nuisance classification seemed appropriate, and that it seemed clear to make the dog owners construct an effective fence. He said the main question would be how to enforce it.
Select Board member Dan Zwirko said the attention should be around the fence, and when looking at the bylaws, it’s discouraging that the owners ignored the fines for several years.
If a civil action were to be taken to enforce the fines, Chaplin said a lawsuit would be filed against the owners in the district court. If that isn’t complied with, a complaint for contempt is brought, which would mean jail time or a court sanction.
The Select Board moved to enforce remedial actions for the two dogs, such as building a 6-foot stockade fence by May 1 to enclose the dogs within the property, a contract for the fence be executed by March 20, the dogs be restrained on the property, the dogs becoming licensed by the end of March and that if the order is ignored, civil action will be brought against them.
