A novel piece of municipal legislation proposing a ban on retail sales of puppies and kittens will come before Durango City Council at its Aug. 1 meeting.
Councilor Olivier Bosmans made a formal request for an ordinance on the subject at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, which, if passed, would ban the sale of puppies and kittens at retail pet stores.
There is no indication the ordinance would have an impact on any existing businesses in town.
The ordinance would not affect residents’ ability to adopt puppies and kittens from animal rescues and shelters, nor would it affect breeders’ abilities to sell the domestic pets if they sell directly to the public, according to ordinance text drafted by City Attorney Mark Morgan.
Proposed code
Draft text for an ordinance that, if passed, would ban the retail sale of pets in Durango. The text reads:
“(a) No person shall engage in the sale, barter, auction, give away, offer for adoption, advertisement for sale or other disposition the species of domestic cat, felis catus and the species of domestic dog, canis familiaris at retail pet stores.
“(b) Nothing herein shall prohibit pet stores from collaborating with animal care facilities or animal rescue organizations to offer space for such entities to showcase adoptable dogs or cats provided the pet store shall not have any ownership interest in the animals offered for adoption and shall not receive a fee for providing space for the adoption of any of these animals.”
Bosmans publicly raised the idea twice before at City Council study sessions and said a resident reached out to him suggesting the city prohibit the sales of puppies and kittens.
At a July 5 study session, he said the same resident has emailed City Council about the subject before.
Such local laws are few and far between in Colorado, and some municipalities that have passed similar laws don’t have retail pet stores that sell either cats or dogs, Morgan said at a study session earlier this month.
Erin Hyder, assistant city manager, said the city of Lafayette in Boulder County is, to her knowledge, the most recent city to pass anything regulating retail pet sales.
“They don’t have pet stores selling kittens or puppies. All they reference, really, is if they received a complaint they would pass it on to law enforcement or animal control enforcement,” she said. “They did pass it but they have no businesses in place right now.”
She said Lafayette’s measure comes off as a “feel good ordinance.”
City Council voted 4-1 to entertain the proposed ordinance. If councilors vote to support the legislation Aug. 1, it will then appear on City Council’s next meeting agenda for a final reading and a vote. Councilor Gilda Yazzie voted against continuing the ordinance through the process.
No statewide or nationwide prohibition of retail pet sales exists – the U.S. Supreme Court declined to rule on a case about the subject – and likewise there is no case law to guide the city attorney’s office in drafting legislation, Morgan said.
The ordinance, if passed, would be the city’s first law directly regulating any sort of business, which comes with its own problems, he said.
“Let’s say you put this on the books and then there’s a breeder of French bulldogs or whatever who does it humanely, and then they can’t market their product in your community because of your ordinance,” he said. “That creates legal issues that you might have to deal with later down the line.
“But that’s just kind of government. Sometimes you just decide what you want to do and then deal with the consequences as they come, if they ever come,” he said.
The model ordinance delivered by a resident to council argues most puppies and kittens sold in pet stores originate in large-scale commercial breeding facilities – mills – where the animals’ health and safety are disregarded in favor of profits for the business; that mills overbreed, inbreed and do not adequately care for the animals; and that substandard living conditions within mills can cause behavioral problems in the animals, among other things; and that banning retail pet sales would decrease the demand for animals bred by mills.
cburney@durangoherald.com
