The bog and the dogs don?t mix. Two Hampstead neighbors? dispute over feces running from one yard into the other escalated to the state?s second-highest court before being sent back to where it started: the Carroll County zoning board.
The Court of Special Appeals sent back to the board the feud involving the neighbors but gave no reasons for its decision.
Mark Laird owns a 32-acre horse farm and several dogs. His neighbor, David Solomon, insists he?s fighting a crusade on behalf of bog turtles that have not been documented on his land, but he claims are endangered by dog waste flowing from Laird?s yard.
The board ordered Laird to move his dog kennel, which violated county code because it was too close to the property line.
“He had tons of places to put it, so the board said he had to move it,” said J. Carroll Holzer, Solomon?s attorney.
But for Laird, an industrial equipment salesman, the ordeal is gone on too long.
He says he?s paid about $10,000 in legal fees in the case, which began in 1995 when he first applied for a variance for the dog kennel he was forced to move.
“The only thing Solomon accomplished was forcing me to tear down a building that was perfectly usable, didn?t bother anybody, kept the dogs sequestered away from the neighborhood,” Laird said.
He still has another dog shelter formerly used to house horses that is farther away from the property line. But Holzer said his client plans to appeal to Carroll Circuit Court to try to get rid of that building, as well.
He criticized the zoning board for failing to justify its decisions and said he expects lots of legal wrangling.
Laird, however, wanted to move on from the battle of the dogs and bogs behind.
“It?s time to put this thing to rest,” Laird said. “Let him do what he wants to do; let me do what I want to do.”
