Summer must be coming — because Bay Ridge’s bustling 69th Street pier smells like dead fish.
On bad days, the foul reek can waft inland to Third Avenue four blocks away — and there have been too many bad days so far this year, residents say.
“It’s back and it stinks!” fumed Ridgite Derek Zaragoza on Monday.
The stench comes from decaying fish carcasses, which are often used for bait, but then left on the pier by some fisherman.
It really does stink.
“We got more than a dozen complaints last year — and I expect more,” said Community Board 10 District Manager Josephine Beckmann, who put some of the blame on the anglers.
But not all of the fish fanatics are at fault, said Barb Kelly, a regular fisherman on the pier.
Kelly claims it’s only a few bottom-feeders who are giving the fishing community a bad name — and a messy reputation.
“Some people just don’t clean anything,” he said. “Us regular fishermen put up our own bait-boards to cut on. We don’t use anything else.”
Kelly also claimed that this fish stinks from the head down — the city is actually to blame!
“The Parks Department should help take care of it, but they ain’t good for [fish excrement],” the fisherman said, displaying a sailor’s mouth.
A Parks spokesman said the agency cleans the pier as regularly as the tides themselves.
“Every day, our maintenance crews clean [the pier] of litter and empty the trash cans,” spokesman Phil Abramson told The Brooklyn Paper.
But some fisherman are as relentless as Captain Ahab in scorning the agency (though, “Moby Dick” fans might well remember that Ahab wasn’t all there).
“A truck comes around maybe one or two times a week. One truck, one guy, that’s it,” said an angler who gave his name as Bob.
