Ordinance leaves pet owners fowl

Moods bordered on fowl at City Hall Tuesday night as city staff and the City Council tried to lay down the law concerning hen ownership in La Cañada.

About a dozen animal owners came out to protest wording of an ordinance that would severely restrict small and large pets and livestock ownership in homes and on properties within the city.

The proposed ordinance came about after last year when neighbors complained about noise and odor emanating from about two dozen exotic chickens roaming free in a La Cañada yard. However, after the council asked city staff to return with an ordinance to deal with the perceived pet ownership problem, the 12-page document recently created by staff was, to many, a bit too invasive and restrictive.

“This [ordinance] just seemed to grow like a many-headed monster,” said Mary Barrie, chair of the parks commission and a La Cañada pet owner. “It’s like killing a mouse with a cannonball.”

What concerned Barrie most was a restriction that limited residents to three adult cats per household. “Do you know how many people have five or more cats in La Cañada?” she asked the council. “Most cats stay indoors,” she said, adding that coyotes and other wild animals limit the outdoor cat population.

Councilman Gregory Brown took umbrage to many details of the ordinance, including the proposed lot size requirements for chicken ownership, as well as restrictions on the number of hamsters and turtles a family could own. “There’s chickens and then there’s chickens. The ones I’ve been around were very quiet,” he said adding, “And, why are we even regulating hamsters?”

Although Councilman Donald Voss leaned toward staff’s suggested chicken regulations, he agreed that some of the details of the ordinance were unnecessarily restrictive. “If you have two kids and one kid wants two hamsters and another wants two parakeets, they’re in violation of the law,” he said, joking, “What are you going to do, lock them up?”

Retaining the rural feel of La Cañada Flintridge was on the minds of many who spoke at the meeting. “It’s really too bad that people on smaller lots won’t be able to keep animals,” resident William Johnson said.

Brown and Mayor David Spence echoed Johnson and other residents who spoke during the public hearing portion of the meeting in that the city’s current nuisance ordinance should alleviate most anticipated odor, noise, and health concerns, without the need for the proposed governmental regulations.

However, after much debate and some suggestions from Councilwoman Laura Olhasso — including changing the number of allowable cats from three to five and allowing three chickens per household to be kept in registered coops, regardless of lot size — the council sent the ordinance back to staff for some fine tuning and another first reading and public hearing to be at the next council meeting on Sept. 17.