Snyderville Basin Recreation has closed down its four dog parks, and the trails could be next – if residents don’t practice the required social distancing – 6 feet away from the next person.
The closure of the four dog parks – Run A Muck, Willow Creek, Trailside, and The Woods at Parleys Lane - were closed on Monday. These are the latest in a series of closures by Basin Recreation… the lap pool, the playgrounds and park pavilions and the skate park. Basin Recreation District Director Brian Hanton says they’ve been considering closing the dog parks for a while now…
“The number of people that go through the gates that are there - we just feel it's a safer environment just to close those to limit the gathering points and access to those parks at this time,” Hanton said.
Hanton says the trail remain open – but unless people start doing a better job at spacing themselves out – those could be closed as well…
“Our trails are still open, he said. “We've limited a lot of our facilities but we're inviting people out on the trails we are having some issues at the trailheads. Those will probably be the next if people can't abide by the regulations that are in place by the Health Department and I know that at Rob’s this past weekend, we had an abundance of cars that were overflowing the area there. So our hope is that we can get people just to adhere to the requirements of the Health Department and keeping their social distancing or limiting locations if they see a busy area to avoid those and find some other areas that they can go at this time.”
Not only are there too many people at one place he says – but they’re also seeing people congregating at the trailheads without practicing the safe social distancing…
“I eye-witnessed tailgating at the Parkview trailhead in Summit Park with probably about 10 to 12 people hanging out there,” he said. “So, we I mean as much as we want to appreciate the outdoors and utilize those, we still have people that aren't really taking this as serious is what I'm getting from the Health Department.”
Hanton says he understands it’s an inconvenience not to have the dog parks open, but he says they need to do their job to keep it safe for other users as well as his staff. He also reminds people that dogs using the trails need to be on leash. You can see the entire list of closures online at basinrecreation.org
