Legislation – What’s Hot . . . . . .Chicago, IL Retail Pet Store Ordinance’s Troubled History with “Rescues” would Force Licensing of All Cat Breeders

 

Legislation – What’s Hot

June 2020

Kelly S. Crouch, CFA Legislative Information Liaison
Sharon Coleman, CFA Legislative Legal Analyst

Licensing all cat, dog, and rabbit breeders is a problematic side effect of a proposed ordinance meant to fix problems arising from the 2014 Retail Pet Store Ordinance. Each breeder would be subject to license fees (currently $275), inspections, facilities and care requirements if enacted. To understand the rationale behind the proposed ordinance, presently assigned to the council’s Committee on Health and Human Relations, one must know the troubled history of the current law.
In 2014, the city of Chicago was one of the early local governments to amend its Animal Care ordinance in hopes of curtailing the local market for “puppy mill” puppies as advocated by a growing national advocacy network. For good measure, cats and sometimes rabbits are included in these laws, and the newly enacted provisions were effective in 2015. Rather than simply prohibit retail pet stores from selling animals that they purchased as inventory for retail sale, the ordinance allowed stores to acquire, or “source” from animal rescues and resell these animals to the public. In 2017, the 10th Circuit Federal Court upheld the ordinance in a challenge by one of the local pet stores. Not to be deterred from satisfying local demand for puppies, USDA licensed commercial breeders created their own “rescue” organizations to channel selected puppies to the Chicago pet stores and others to pet stores where there were no restrictive laws. A 2018 investigative report in the Chicago Tribune exposed these practices as “outsmarting city ordinance.” (Designer and purebred puppies from other states sold as rescue dogs in Chicago, outsmarting city ordinance, Chicago Tribune 5/18/2018 . Fast forward two years, and proposed remedial amendments are in the legislative channel but raising new concerns.
Last month, at a virtual City Council meeting, the proposed ordinance was explained as allowing “pet shops to provide space to an animal shelter or rescue organization to house and display dogs, cats and rabbits for adoption” and further:
But it also states: “The pet shop shall not have any ownership or monetary interest in the animals displayed for adoption. The animals may only be transferred to an adopting individual for a nominal adoption fee.” (https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-hall/2020/5/20/21265137/puppy-mills-ordinance-loophole-chicago-city-council)
Over the years of the “adopt don’t shop” campaign transitioning from outside advocacy to legislation, drafting approaches were like replacement windows that were often “stuck into” existing law with haphazard efforts to fit the local framework or consider future needs. Municipal attorneys vary in drafting standards that can avoid future problems by using narrow, clear prohibitions that help to avoid the kinds of unclear and unnecessary exemptions that lead to “loopholes.” The “stop puppy mills” objective has often trumped the realities of local consumer demand for puppies that could be filled with some modest restrictions on existing USDA licensed breeders and persists in the current efforts. There has never been a viable business model for stores to “acquire” their own inventory for resale, particularly when the traditional humane sources were unwilling to sell to stores for resale even if stores were willing to forego profit potential. Now, the “fix” is to prohibit stores from reselling but ensure that they can legally “showcase” for “adoption” from the “humane sources.” The critical issue is whether the humane source should continue to include rescues and, if so, how can these be defined to exclude de facto for-profit sales. The current effort involved redefining “rescue” with a list of exclusionary requirements and whether this new definition applies only in the pet store law context or across all the laws involving rescue and the newly added provisions. This effort not only includes “fixes” as in Chicago and currently amending California state law but also in newly enacted ordinances such as North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, the first known local ordinance in the state enacted in August 2019 with the new type definition of animal rescue organization containing restrictive elements referring to breeders.
For Chicago, divorcing “commercial producers” from rescue means redefining the rescue organization and animal care facility definitions terms. The proposed rescue organization definition would be changed by adding the following underlined language:
“ any not-for-profit organization that has tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code, whose mission and practice is, in whole or in significant part, the rescue and placement of dogs, cats or rabbits. “Rescue organization” does not include any person that (i) is a commercial producer: (ii) obtains dogs, cats, or rabbits from a commercial producer: (iii) facilitates the sale for profit of a dog, cat, or rabbit for a commercial producer: (iv) has common personnel with a commercial producer, including, but not limited to, any employee, manager, or board member: or (v) is an “affiliated business.” as that term is defined by 44 111. Adm. Code § 20.540(b), of a commercial producer.”
A commercial producer is defined as “a person that breeds dogs, cats, or rabbits for the purpose of selling the offspring” thereby excluding rescues in which breeders are involved.
Redefining animal care facility as proposed eliminates the consistency with the state breeder licensing law that excludes from state cat or dog breeder definition anyone who “owns, has possession of, or harbors 5 or less females capable of reproduction”. The revised definition would be changed by striking the exemption for breeders with five or fewer females capable of reproduction and the one for those who had only occasional sales of animals they produced and raised. However, the definition would still include those who are engaged in the business of breeding (and other activities). But the proposal stipulates that “engaged in the business” of breeding means anyone who owns, possesses, or harbors a female cat or dog that reproduces. The only “breeders” exempted are those who surrender the offspring and mother to an approved animal shelter or rescue facility within 30 days of the birth of the litter, or provide documentation within three months of the birth to Chicago Animal Care and Control that the mother and the offspring have been sterilized and microchipped.
The proposed ordinance not only removes the consistency with the state breeder licensing law, it deprives some legitimate rescues of an important adoption tool. Since all these “bans” are really about dogs and not cats (and rabbits where included), consideration should be given to local cat rescues that have for years had arrangements with local pet stores to display their own community cats for adoption and could be at risk from these “new” definitions, as well as risks to fanciers from poorly conceived amendments or even exclusion of private rescue organizations.
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