Telluride Town Council mulls changes to dog leash law

[Crossfire Bulldogs]

Change aimed at making gondola platform, Lift 7 safer

By Katie Klingsporn - Telluride Daily Planet, CO.

Mark Goldfogel takes his female border collie mix, Small Fry, to the gondola platform in the wintertime on occasion to let her run around.

He’s one of many who head to the gondola platform — and to the bottom of Lift 7 — during the snowy months because, he said, there aren’t really other options when Telluride is blanketed in snow and Town Park is off-limits.

“There’s almost nowhere that you are allowed to take your dog to run around in the wintertime,” he said.

Goldfogel and other dog owners may have to change their routines, however, if the Telluride Town Council approves a new ordinance that expands the leash law. The council on Tuesday approved a first reading of an ordinance that would require dogs to be leashed in both the gondola platform and base of Lift 7 during lift hours of the ski season. The idea behind the ordinance is to eliminate the dangerous mix of dogs running around unleashed and people skiing or snowboarding off of the mountain.

The council will hold a public hearing and consider final approval of the ordinance at its next meeting on Oct. 31.

This is a scaled-down version of an expanded leash law that was proposed for consideration by the Citizen’s Advisory Board this summer. That one proposed expanding the leash law to the river trail, bike path, gondola platform and base of Lift 7. The current law requires dogs to be leashed in the corridor between Columbia and Pacific Avenues and in Town Park.

However, that proposal was quashed at a meeting in August, when a crowd of dog owners crammed into Rebekah Hall with a vocal and resounding message: Don’t expand the leash laws, particularly on the river trail and bike path.

Following that meeting, Telluride Chief Marshal Jim Kolar brought the new and less-imposing proposal to council. Despite the urging not to expand leash laws, a safety issue still exists at the gondola and Lift 7, Kolar contends.

“Dogs running loose pose a hazard to skiers/snowbarders arriving at the end of ski trails in these areas and I think it reasonable to restrict their interaction for public safety purposes,” Kolar wrote in a recent memo to the council. Kolar was out of the office on Thursday and unavailable for comment.

Interim town council member Justin Clifton has a dog, and during the wintertime he typically takes her to the base of Lift 7 so she can run. However, Clifton doesn’t believe this ordinance is unreasonable since it is limited only to ski lift hours of operation, he said.

“I guess in my opinion it’s not necessarily an unreasonable expansion of the leash law,” he said. “This is not a permanent closure of the area for those dogs, it’s simply a temporary closure, during the ski season, during lift times, for those areas. It will definitely have a direct impact on me, but it’s certainly one that I’ll accept.”

Goldfogel, too, said he recognizes the validity of restricting loose dogs in the lift areas, but he wonders about alternatives for dog owners. Because Town Park is reserved for cross-country skiing during the winter, it leaves little options, he said.

“Somebody needs to acknowledge that we need to have a place in the winter where dogs can get off their leash and play,” he said.

The marshal’s office, together with the Parks and Rec Department, have begun to explore areas in and around Town Park that could be used in exchange for the loss of these locations, but haven’t come up with anything concrete yet.

Possibilities include use of the inner ball fields or three small open-field parks located between the San Miguel River and Colorado Avenue in the blocks between Hemlock and Columbine streets.