Over the last 3-4 weeks when walking our dog, my wife and I have noticed a lot of food that has been dumped in the park. This does not seem to be some random dumping where someone has had some fast food and then just left if somewhere. This dumping seems more deliberate and the volume is a lot more than just the usual fast food bag with leftovers in it.
What we have seen over the last few weeks is fried/baked chicken, pieces of hot dogs, meatballs and even potato chips. When my wife told me about the chicken I went down to the park to clean it up. I would estimate there were about 16-20 pieces of chicken though some were obviously chewed on by animals or possibly by the people who left it there.
There seems to be two very specific facts to this dumping:
1 - It is always a LOT of food no matter what is being dumped
2 - It is always in the SAME PLACE in the park. The food is being put into a pile near Pampa between the sidewalk and the drainage ditch that is next to the one in the corner.
For example the potato chips probably amounted to two large bags worth of chips. On that note I also found two large bags of chips at the ramada this morning between the time of 630-7am. No one was around so I dumped the chips even though the bags were not opened just to be safe.
I have no idea who is doing it or why this food dumping is occurring. It seems to occur after 5pm and before 7am the next morning about 2-3 times a week lately. My biggest concern is that people walking dogs are going to see their dogs go after the food especially if the dogs are let loose even for a few minutes to run around the park. I am also concerned that someone may be tampering with the food before they dump it to either see animals get sick or to hurt them.
Please be vigilant whenever you go by the park to see if you notice any individual or group of people around the area I described by Pampa. If possible see if you can get a license plate number to report to the police or even a general description of the people doing it to tell the Mesa PD. As noted on the signs at the park dumping food is against city law in parks like the one in our neighborhood.
This is the park that is in our neighborhood and we need to keep an eye on it so the folks doing this food dumping can be caught before some animal gets sick or even worse.
