I was speaking with Mindy Pellessier the other day – she and her partner Jane own and run the Dog Beach Dog Wash on Voltaire Street. (See our earlier post on Mindy by Sunshine.)
Mindy is really concerned that with the defeat of Prop D, the City will be so hard up for cash, that it will seriously consider corporate advertising on public facilities at Dog Beach and other areas of the sand. This will be the subject of a later post – but what really amazed me was how much her business has spent over the years on keeping Dog Beach and another park clean!
I couldn’t believe it, but Mindy – with Jane in the background verifying the figures – told me that Dog Beach Dog Wash spends an approximate average of $400 EVERY MONTH to maintain Dog Beach and Dusty Rhodes Park dog-poop free.
This is mind-boggling. Mindy told me that they spend roughly $350 on keeping the doggy bags coming – in the pole dispensaries – and another $50 a month in having their employees refill those dispensaries weekly.
This has over the past 15 years translated into $50,000 just for the bags. And the bag company loves what they’re doing so much, it has not raised its prices over that same period of time.
The dog wash establishment has sponsored about 200 clean-ups of Dog Beach in that time also, and Mindy claims that they have stocked 3 million of those bags over those 15 years. That’s a lot of bags … and a lot of … well, you know.
Mindy claims that about 6,000 to 10,000 dog poop bags are used every month – including Dusty Rhodes – depending on the season. And the City doesn’t replace them – she and Jane do. There’s 11 dispensaries left – two were stolen (perhaps they’ll show up in a “Terriers” episode).
As part of their paid duties, she has a couple of her employees call volunteers for the clean-ups and has them also set things up for the clean-ups over at Dog Beach.
This is simply incredible that a local business goes to so much trouble and expense to keep one of our beaches and one of our parks free of what our little furry friends leave for us. Obviously these businesswomen are not in it just for the money, as they gallantly feel responsible for the subjects of their craft. They are certainly doing their part for Ocean Beach.
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Right on, Mindy!
I have seen park employees replace doggie bags to the box at the entrance to dog beach and one day I did over hear who I think was the supervisor asking her employee to clean poop from the grass. So they are helping with the situation. Why can’t people just police themselves and bring bags from home and clean up after their pet(s) and the dog wash can spend all that money on something else.