February 13: Cleaning Up New York

Fran Lee (Lederman), whose consumer advocacy led to New York’s “pooper-scooper” law in 1978, died in Jerusalem at age 99 on this date in 2010. As a radio and television personality from the 1940s to the 1990s (appearing on the Tonight Show, Steve Allen Show, etc. as Mrs. Fix-It, Mrs. Consumer, or Granny Franny), she took on cyclamates, asbestos, and other dangerous products while “simultaneously encapsulating Ralph Nader, a favorite Jewish grandmother and a foghorn,” according to her New York Times obituary. In the 1970s Lee launched the Children Before Dogs campaign, with the goal of eliminating dog waste (which can cause a roundworm-based disease in children) from the city’s streets. Her activism led to the enactment of the Canine Waste Law on August 1, 1978. The law was challenged as a violation of religious freedom for Orthodox Jews (who are forbidden from scooping on the sabbath) but was sustained in court. Cities that followed New York (with clean shoe soles) include San Francisco, Houston, Washington, DC, Raleigh, NC, and Lebanon, NH, which DNA-tests abandoned poop to locate scofflaws.

“I’m telling you manufacturers right now: Lay off Fran Lee. I’m not afraid of you. You can’t buy me, you can’t bribe me and you can’t tell me to be sweet.” —Fran Lee