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FIRST ON amNY Metro: NYC dog parks closed beginning tomorrow

A woman walks dogs during an unusually warm winter day in the Brooklyn borough of New York
New York City will be closing dog parks on April 6 to help reduce crowds amid the coronavirus outbreak, a Mayor’s Office spokesperson said. (REUTERS/Lucas Jackson)

The city will close all dog runs and dog parks tomorrow after receiving reports of overcrowding, a spokesperson from the mayor’s office told amNY on Sunday. 

Not a large enough number of New Yorkers are using dog parks and runs at any one time though, the spokesperson said, to lead the mayor’s office to believe closures would cause overcrowding in larger parks. The issue is that the spaces are small and conducive to crowding, the spokesperson added. It is unclear how many complaints of overcrowding the city has received. 

On Saturday, April 4, the mayor’s office announced that all basketball rims, tennis nets would be removed from city parks. A week and a half before, the mayor announced that 80 basketball hoops would be removed from parks across the city. 

On April 6, the city will begin locking up all courts of any kind to further stop New Yorkers from gathering and potentially spreading the novel coronavirus with all courts scheduled to be closed by Friday, April 10. 

Back on April 1, Governor Andrew Cuomo finally closed all playgrounds in New York City parks to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus after receiving reporters of people breaking social distancing rules in city parks especially on warm, sunny days.

The announcement came a day after Mayor Bill de Blasio ordered 10 out of the city’s over 2,000 playgrounds to be closed.

This is a developing story; check with amNY.com later for further updates.