This init script wasn't working with puppet, but after I changed this line it's working fine. It looks like if it returned the wrong status code, so puppet was always assuming it's runnning even when it's stopped.
creating the /var/run/statsd directory during the debian package installation
violates the lintian rule 'dir-or-file-in-var-run'. /var/run might be a tmpfs
and thus volatile.
Create a new _statsd system user on package installation (and remove him
when package is purged), and modify upstrart and init-script to have
this user run the daemon.