Daniel Rubin | Yapping, snapping dogfight sparked by a park's closing

Here's a tale for the dog days of August:

How a disagreement over a fenced pen for pooches turned into a snarling, feces-flinging death match that's roped in two heavyweight law firms and forced the City of Philadelphia to padlock the whole park.

"So, you want to know why so many people hate me?" says Ralph Cipriano with a smile over lunch as he pushes a package of incriminating photos across the table.

Cipriano lives 88 feet from the dog run on Corinthian Avenue, in the shadow of the old Eastern State Penitentiary in Fairmount. Since 2002, he says, he and his family have endured the piercing sounds, the pungent smells, and the Yappy Hours, when dog owners would meet after work and chat as their pets ran free.

The photos - taken by a police officer at the city's request - show items like a trash can filled with bags of excrement and the note that reads: "This crap is cooking in the sun."

Cipriano insists he is anything but the heavy his opponents are trying to paint. The other side, he says, has been unreasonable.

"I'm an old junkyard dog that has been beaten on the head for five years," says Cipriano.

"I'm not going to be intimidated," says Karen Clark, 65, a retired special-ed teacher who lives a block from the park where she used to take her cavalier King Charles spaniel, Sunshine.

She organized Friday night's rally, where several dozen hounds and handlers picketed to protest the closing of the park, which she says was kept clean, safe and friendly.

The shuttering, she says, hurts dogs and humans.

Clark was a relatively new dog owner when she made her first trip to the 170-by-40-foot pen.

"The park became a place that Sunshine and I looked forward to going to," she says. "He likes me to throw a tennis ball, and he likes to bring it back. He literally taught me the game of fetch.

"I had never played with a dog. It gave me this new excitement about living."

And the dog park connected her to a rainbow of neighbors.

Fast forward to April. Cipriano and his wife, Rosemarie, led seven others on their block in filing a suit against the Friends of Eastern State Penitentiary Park and the city, accusing the group of creating a public nuisance, and the city of letting it happen.

There's some back story here. Rosemarie used to be president of the Friends group. She worked hard for years to clean the park when it was an eyesore. As Eric Diaz, the group's current president, puts it, "We used to treat each other like family."

Now it's more like the families you see on Jerry Springer.

(Disclosure: Ralph Cipriano used to be an Inquirer reporter. We worked together amicably. But he has some history with the paper, having sued its former editor for libel and having won a settlement in the case. You might want to Google it.)

Cipriano didn't mess around. He hired seasoned zoning lawyers at Klehr, Harrison, Harvey, Branzburg & Ellers to challenge the dog park. The firm went for a temporary restraining order, asking Common Pleas Court Judge Gary F. DiVito to close the park.

Diaz, a real estate lawyer, got his firm, Ballard, Spahr, Andrews & Ingersoll, to represent him free. It's also representing the city.

After two days of testimony, the judge sided with Cipriano, et al., calling the dog park at odds with what the city likely envisioned when it licensed the land:

"The term 'park' brings to the court's mind those pastoral preserves created by the founder of our city dedicated to the use, enjoyment, recreation of its citizens. Rittenhouse, Washington and Fitler Squares immediately come to mind: verdant islands of tranquility amidst the canyons of buildings and the city's noisy streets."

The judge likened the dog park to a public toilet and ordered it closed. The dog people promise to appeal to a higher court.

(Mr. Cipriano might object to my characterizing the park's proponents as "the dog people." He and his family had a 14-year-old collie/shepherd mix named Sugar who died last summer. "I cried," he says. "I don't hate dogs.")

Now, the whole place is fenced off: no dogs or people allowed. The plants are withering. Someone recently smashed its benches.

And Rosemarie Cipriano, who says she finds dog droppings on her doorstep every day, says she hopes everyone can sit down and work out a plan that would let people back into the space.

She's not convinced that plan need include free-ranging dogs.

The graphic artist imagines something "where all of my neighbors can meet and enjoy each other's company."

Might be a while before that happens.