The millionaires’ playground of Capri plans to use CSI: Crime Scene Investigation-style technology to solve the problem of who has not been cleaning up after their posh pooches.
Sophisticated DNA testing, once available only for major crimes, will soon be used to catch the owners of dogs who foul the Italian isle’s whitewashed alleyways and boutique-lined streets.
The mayor of Capri, once home to the likes of Graham Greene and Gracie Fields, has issued an ordinance requiring all owners to submit DNA of their dogs to a central database. Local police will have the task of collecting the evidence from the street.
The samples will then be submitted to the crime laboratory for DNA tests to identify the dog — and owner — responsible. The ordinance is the latest move by the Mayor, Ciro Lembo, to ensure that the Mediterranean island retains its allure as a tourist destination. The rocky outcrop in the Bay of Naples has been a favoured site for second homes since the Roman Emperor Tiberius held bacchanalia at his Villa Jovis 2,000 years ago.
Greene, who once said that he could do six months’ work in only four weeks on Capri, wrote parts of his most celebrated novels on the island, including The End of the Affair (1951) and The Quiet American (1955). Fields, the 1930s singer, lived on the island for 40 years and died there in 1979.
The mayor has been trying to protect the 1.2 sq mile island, which attracts hordes of tourists and summer visitors, from the disorder that affects Naples, which is only a short ferry-ride away. Already this year he has tried to ban lawnmowers and leaf blowers in the peak summer season. He retreated after protests from gardeners.
In previous years the island has also outlawed wooden clogs and the wearing of bikinis in town.
Capri, with a year-round population of 7,305, has almost 1,000 resident dogs. Owners are required to pick up their dog’s mess when walking them on the street but, on an island that prides itself on its bella figura, many shirk the unpleasant responsibility.
The Italian newspaper La Stampa said: “The passageways of the historic centre are only a little over a metre wide and to walk down them you often have to do a slalom.”
Officials have reported cases of people, particularly the elderly, falling over and fracturing limbs trying to avoid waste. Mayor Lembo said that he loves dogs and hates only irresponsible owners. He is taking advantage of an existing law that requires all dogs to have blood tests for canine leishmaniasis, a disease transmitted by sandflies.
Delinquent owners will be fined between €25 (£22) and €1,500. Il Giornale, the newspaper that is owned by the brother of Silvio Berlusconi, said that the cost could vary by the weight of the mess.
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