In late August, the USPS advised residents of the Sleepy Hollow Gardens apartments (177 White Plains Road in Tarrytown) that mail would no longer being delivered to their apartments. About 200 apartment units have been affected.
According to a letter sent by the Tarrytown Post Master and Supervisor of Customer Service to the Sleepy Hollow Gardens’ management company (Samson Management Company) the stoppage was due to multiple dog attacks on postal employees at the complex.
George B. Flood, the U.S. Postal Service Spokesperson for the Northeast, sent the River Journal the following statement:
Let me be clear that one dog attack is one too many. In this fiscal year alone, postal employees nationwide have endured 4,329 dog attacks to date. That averages to about 92 bites every week.
In the Postal Service’s Westchester District, 28 dog attacks have been reported in this period. We cannot expose our carriers to known threats in locations where remedies are available to greatly decrease the risk of a bite as we believe is the case at the 177 White Plains Road complex.
We have made numerous requests to residents to restrain aggressive and loose dogs at the complex. We have not enjoyed sustained cooperation.
We submitted a proposal to the property management to change delivery to a centralized delivery point to protect our carriers while continuing to provide mail service to customers at 177 White Plains Road. The proposal was not accepted.
For that reason, all mail, including publications and packages addressed to 177 White Plains Road will be available for pick-up at the Tarrytown Post Office until the safety of our employees can be assured.
While our goal is to provide the best delivery service possible, we must also be mindful of the welfare and safety of our delivery personnel. We want our carriers to go home to their families and loved ones safe each night. We are proud of their efforts in this instance but their safety is our priority.
According to Tarrytown Village Administrator Richard Slingerland, two Sleepy Hollow Gardens residents contacted the village about the stoppage. “I spoke with the Post Office Supervisor who confirmed they have shut down four or five “sections” of the property from mail delivery due to nuisance or aggressive dogs,” said Slingerland. “He alleged that there have been biting incidents involving their mail carriers. I’ll be following with the management company, as well as other elected officials at different levels of government, and follow-up with the Post Office Supervisor, to see if we can coordinate a mediation between the management company and the USPS to get the mail restored to all of the apartments at Sleepy Hollow Gardens.”
Greenburgh Town Supervior Paul Feiner has a more critical view of the situation. “Mail service improved slightly early this summer but I’m once again receiving numerous complaints each week from residents about postal service operations,” noted Feiner. “This is just one of many complaints. . . The postal service is very unreliable. It’s time for the Congress to schedule hearings on this crisis.”
The River Journal made several attempts to speak with Samson’s Matt Abisch, the property manager, but had not heard back from Mr. Abisch or Samson’s lawyer before press time. The River Journal will continue to reach out to Samson Management and local officials to see if a solution can be reached. In the meantime, we plan to hand deliver copies of the River Journal to all residents of Sleepy Hollow Garden until mail delivery is restored.
As much as we love dogs, please keep yours restrained for the safety of your neighbors, delivery people and other workers who need to feel safe to do their jobs. And if you or a loved one was the victim of a dog bite, someone else might be liable for your suffering. A fresno dog bite lawyer can help you understand your legal options after a dog bite.
I am a resident of this complex. Earlier in August we had a postal carrier who was walking past the front doors of our apartments and just throwing the mail on the ground rather than putting it into the mail slots on each door. When the postal worker was confronted of this his excuse was “he doesn’t want to get bit”. After accusing him of being lazy, and to do his job properly and that we would be making his supervisor aware of this, we no longer received ANY MAIL! The only explanation to this is not that that particular postal carrier got bit but rather he was afraid to lose his job after receiving a negative comment made about him to his supervisor so it makes sense for him to go back to work at the end of the day and tell his supervisor that he got BIT by a dog. The postal worker is lying and trying to divert the real problem here… THAT HE WAS LAZY!
I don’t blame the mail carriers one bit. It is ENTIRELY the fault of irresponsible dog owners. People need to get it through their thick skulls that they need to have their dog UNDER CONTROL AT ALL TIMES. As for Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner’s comment about the USPS being “unreliable”, I have to laugh out loud at that one. I live in a rural area and the USPS is the ONLY delivery service I have not had multiple problems with. I have worked for the USPS in the past and that job is much like being an over the road truck driver (which I’ve done as well): everybody complains about you and what you’re doing until you stop doing your job, THAT is when they finally, reluctantly “get it” that mail carriers and truck drivers perform difficult and very critically necessary jobs. The dog owners are the ones who are breaking the law by allowing their dogs to roam at large. The whole apartment complex should be breathing down THEIR necks because it’s their IRRESPONSIBILITY that has caused this situation. By the way, Mr. Feiner, why don’t you try walking around by the doors of those apartment complexes and see if you are threatened by loose dogs, before you go blaming the mail carrier? I bet you can’t be bothered to get up from your desk in your 3 piece suit to try that one LOL. There have been THIRTY THREE PEOPLE KILLED BY DOGS SO FAR IN 2019. Dog attacks are a very serious matter and that’s why the USPS gives their mail carriers the option to not deliver if they deem a situation too dangerous because of loose dogs.