Something kind of similar to this happened to my friend.
She has a back problem and her dog is 25 lbs so she can't carry him for very long. Anyways, she drove her dog to the pet store and parked on the side of the road. Her dog sits in the passenger seat.
She gets out of her own car without letting the dog out, got her leash and went to the passenger side. She let the dog jump out of the car and bent down to leash him and the animal control officer came over to give her a ticket. She explained she cannot pick her dog up and put him down to leash him because her back has a problem. The AC officer said she can't have her dog off leash at any time and even though she has the leash in her hand and ready to put it on her dog, that 2 seconds is too long so she got a ticket and a warning. I think that's just ridiculous.
There's tons of stray animal problems and animal abuse problems that when you call them, they never even respond or call back but for the 2 secs a dog jumps out of the car onto the floor with owner ready to leash you get a ticket??