Ordinance clarification, think of the dogs man

[HOOKEM4 5007]

This is Travis County / Austin ACA jurisdiction.

If you have a private gated homeowner park, does the leash law apply in that space? I read the ordinance as when dogs are in public. Public in my world means anyone has access to the space. Some blowhard in our neighborhood has animal control patrolling around and city/county dogcatcher mouth breather claims he can enter the park and patrol as well. It is gated and locked and is not accessible to anyone without a key. It is not a public space.

My concern is that someone lets the AC in if they see someone with a dog off the leash. The fact that this is an issue is absurd. The only issues we have had is with trespassers and one neighbor. I don't want to catch a ticket for letting my dog swim. If this is the case, no more letting my dog swim and fetch his bumper. Between the STR and SJW's it's time to move. Dog suppression will not stand.

Code for reference: http://online.encodeplus.com/regs/traviscounty-tx/doc-viewer.aspx?secid=2251#secid-2251

Edited October 7, 2020 by HOOKEM4

[MonkeyDoughnut 10098]

Usually the neighborhood bylaws or covenants will cover this, I would find out what they say. They might just adopt the city/county rules by default.

[TwiceHorn 31085]

I don't believe you can exclude yourself from the applicability of local laws simply by fencing yourself in and locking the gate.

Whatever law applies in the surrounding area, whether county or city, applies inside your fence.

If there's an "in a public place" or "on a public roadway" element to the offense or rule, that might not apply, but you don't get a general exemption by fencing yourself in.

But that particular ordinance says "the Owner's property," not a "public place," so I don't think having a dog running around within the gated portion, but not on "the Owner's property" is going to avoid trouble.

[HOOKEM4 5007]

38 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I don't believe you can exclude yourself from the applicability of local laws simply by fencing yourself in and locking the gate.

Whatever law applies in the surrounding area, whether county or city, applies inside your fence.

If there's an "in a public place" or "on a public roadway" element to the offense or rule, that might not apply, but you don't get a general exemption by fencing yourself in.

But that particular ordinance says "the Owner's property," not a "public place," so I don't think having a dog running around within the gated portion, but not on "the Owner's property" is going to avoid trouble.

I guess the question should be, if the park is owned by a "corporation" and all land owners are "members" of the corporation, does that not entitle the landowners to use the corporation property as owners? Unless specifically prevented in the by-laws? The POA doesn't have any rules against off leash animals in the deed restrictions or by-laws.

What about if I go to my buddies house and let my dog off the leash? That isn't my property but I have consent to allow the dog to be off leash. 

Obviously law still applies and that law is that I cannot take my dog off my property without a leash/restraint. I believe that the private park is my property along with all other residents. Example, you cannot be drunk in public, but you can be drunk on private property unless prohibited by the property owner. 

The more I looked into this, essentially no law enforcement can enter the property without a warrant or PC. There in lies the problem, PC will be given by some jack-wagon who is mad I am throwing a ball to a dog 300 yards from anyone else. 

[Prepuce of Doom 20954]

Poison the jackwagon. 

[HOOKEM4 5007]

I just got back and it is business as usual. 7 dogs off leash all socially distanced and no issues. I will just ignore it. The dude evidently melted down more on Facebook per a neighbor as neither me or my wife are in the factetron group. He said some shit about essentially shooting a dog if it comes close to him.  I am not going to worry. Per the bylaws it looks like we all have undivided interest to the property and that would mean we can claim it as our property if the dog catcher manages to get in to harass us. I am going to fuck this assholes wife. That is my mission and I will post pictures in the swing thread.

[Deej 76396]

Remember, BTK was a dog catcher...

 

[TwiceHorn 31085]

2 hours ago, HOOKEM4 said:

I believe that the private park is my property along with all other residents

That would be the argument with respect to the "Owner's property."  Not sure it's going to win the day.

[HOOKEM4 5007]

2 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

That would be the argument with respect to the "Owner's property."  Not sure it's going to win the day.

From what I am reading, the property owners have undivided ownership of the property.

Edited October 7, 2020 by HOOKEM4

[Deej 76396]

If you're in the right or not, it will suck when they haul your dog off.

Or shoot it. 

Edited October 7, 2020 by Deej

[HOOKEM4 5007]

There is a better chance I fuck his wife.

[dingleberryswitzer 2724]

Wtf, are you saying there's actually animal control personell that will acitvely try to enter a secure area  to capture a dog who's owner is close by?

Meanwhile theres probably 100s of dogs a day that are allowed off leash to shit in public parks?  And who knows how many stray dogs running around the ghetto?

[TwiceHorn 31085]

 

41 minutes ago, HOOKEM4 said:

From what I am reading, the property owners have undivided ownership of the property.

Oh, I am quite sure that is the case.  I'm just not sure it's going to win in some criminal court.  

The definitions of public property for PI and public roadway for DWI are a little surprising.  

[Bevo 13468]

6 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

 

Oh, I am quite sure that is the case.  I'm just not sure it's going to win in some criminal court.  

The definitions of public property for PI and public roadway for DWI are a little surprising.  

They are probably a little flexible to meet the authority's needs. We had purchased a new car and started pulling out of a parking space in N. Austin. The guy in a parking space on the opposite side then started to pull out without looking. I stopped and honked for about 5 seconds to try to get him to stop but he continued on in his junker truck and hit the rear side panel of the car. The guy apologized for not paying attention. The police came by and said there was nothing they could do about it because it was private property.

[deadshank 24648]

The question of "who let the dogs out?" has been answered.  

Hookem44 done it.

[TwiceHorn 31085]

7 hours ago, Bevo said:

They are probably a little flexible to meet the authority's needs. We had purchased a new car and started pulling out of a parking space in N. Austin. The guy in a parking space on the opposite side then started to pull out without looking. I stopped and honked for about 5 seconds to try to get him to stop but he continued on in his junker truck and hit the rear side panel of the car. The guy apologized for not paying attention. The police came by and said there was nothing they could do about it because it was private property.

There are a lot of ins outs and whathaveyous.

From a DWI perspective, a roadway is public notwithstanding its private ownership if it is accessible to a substantial portion of the public.  This notion has been applied to gated communities, with the community being the substantial portion of the public.

So, the cops were probably wrong about whether they could exercise jurisdiction there.  But, their exercise of jurisdiction is mostly meaningless in a car accident, which is typically a civil matter and a "police report" or even a citation issued by a cop that didn't witness the accident is just a piece of evidence in a civil case, it is by no means dispositive of the case.

In the instance of "dogcatcher" jurisdiction over gated community property, it is fairly unlikely that the meaning and applicability of the Travis County ordinance ever gets construed.  It would either be brought in a JP court or municipal court with unclear ability to appeal to more substantial courts of record, e.g. the County Court at Law and up.

[Bevo 13468]

24 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

So, the cops were probably wrong about whether they could exercise jurisdiction there.  But, their exercise of jurisdiction is mostly meaningless in a car accident, which is typically a civil matter and a "police report" or even a citation issued by a cop that didn't witness the accident is just a piece of evidence in a civil case, it is by no means dispositive of the case.

Sounds like the cops got it totally wrong in my case. They told me there was nothing that I could do that it was a he said she said type of situation. I said I didn't get that since the guy admitted he was at fault and my wife was in the passenger seat as a witness. He said that she really couldn't be a witness because she would be biased. So based on all that, we each went our merry way, but I had to live with a dent on a new car. In retrospect, I should have ignored the cop and gotten the guy's complete information and turned it in to my insurance company.

[TwiceHorn 31085]

8 minutes ago, Bevo said:

Sounds like the cops got it totally wrong in my case. They told me there was nothing that I could do that it was a he said she said type of situation. I said I didn't get that since the guy admitted he was at fault and my wife was in the passenger seat as a witness. He said that she really couldn't be a witness because she would be biased. So based on all that, we each went our merry way, but I had to live with a dent on a new car. In retrospect, I should have ignored the cop and gotten the guy's complete information and turned it in to my insurance company.

Well, they were wrong about their jurisdiction on private property, assuming it was "open to a substantial portion of the public."  But they were probably right about declining to issue a citation or prepare a report on an issue that they didn't witness.  But they probably should have done a report of the persons involved, insurance info, any admissions of the parties involved, etc. That was probably sheer laziness.

Yeah, always get the person's information.

What people often don't seem to understand is that the insurance companies of the parties involved in an accident try to informally replicate what might happen in a lawsuit between the two parties and "adjudicate" fault and the resulting payment, accordingly.  Obviously, because it's not in court, they don't really have access to a lot of evidence, so photos of the scene, etc. are very helpful in developing the facts.  There also seems to be an unfortunate reliance on police reports, if any, even though such reports have minimal actual evidentiary value when the police didn't witness the accident.

 

[HOOKEM4 5007]

Thread hijacker. 

It was a waste of time to post really. I am going to keep doing what I want since nobody is ever here and if they are I won't let my EBD off a leash. He just wants to fucking swim, he doesn't give two shits about anything when he is in swim mode. Fuck the police.