Dog owners say off-leash limits too tough

The unleashed fury of San Francisco dog owners is a strange and terrible thing to behold. The city's dog owners have a long history of fighting for the right to let their pooches roam free at Crissy Field and other spots along the water.

So last Friday, when the Golden Gate National Recreation Area released its draft of a potential dog management plan that restricts off-leash puppy-romping, dogged advocates mobilized.

"We were all taken by surprise by how overly restrictive it is," said Martha Walters, chair of the Crissy Field Dog Group. "It is a very radical departure."

But, says GGNRA spokesman Howard Levitt, something had to be done.

"For a number of years now we have had confusion, conflict, friction, vitriol and shouting matches in the park," he said. "There is just tremendous confusion about where and when you can have a dog in the park."

The last time park officials tried to alter the off-leash policy, they had a meeting in 2001. "There were easily 1,500 people there ... I think it really freaked out the Park Service," Walters said.

The result was that dog walking has existed in what Levitt calls "benign neglect." Dogs mostly run free along the waterfront, despite complaints from native plant fanciers who insist that they damage the flora.

Levitt reminds critics that the general rules in national parks are that dogs must always be on a leash. Even with the changes, he says, Bay Area parks would be "uniquely dog friendly."

Let's see if the dog walkers buy that.

My advice - get ready for arf-ageddon.

The recent column on zealous parking ticket enforcement in the city got plenty of reaction and a couple of good stories. One of the best:

Jeff Lampert and Matt Kulis got a parking ticket in November. It said that their 1989 Cadillac was illegally parked in the city. Lambert and Kulis thought that sounded unlikely.

The car is kept exclusively in Palm Springs, to use when they are visiting their condo there.

"So not only is the city issuing more tickets to illegally parked cars to balance the budget," they wrote, "but they are also issuing tickets to cars that are not even in San Francisco."

Presented with documentation, the city dismissed the ticket.

Nice try, though.

C.W. Nevius' column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail him at cwnevius@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page C - 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle