January 2021

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

PIJAC’s Letter on Essential Businesses

The identification of and restrictions on essential businesses remains a concern this year as the pandemic continues. Occasionally state and local officials overlooked pet supply and care providers when designating businesses as essential. When this happened, the only local source of pet food was the grocery store’s limited options that may not be suitable for all pets or even all pet species. Shipping and shortages further decreased access to pet supplies at times last year. Not only do pets like to eat, but they sometimes need veterinary and other care. In light of this ongoing issue, CFA authorized the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council (PIJAC) to add CFA to its open letter to regulators to protect these essential pet services. On December 4, 2020, George Eigenhauser, the CFA Legislative Coordinator, sent an alert to the lists inviting people to go to the PIJAC website to add their pet-centric businesses to the open letter. And respond, you did! Thank you for that. You may still do so if you missed the announcement. Also, should you become aware of essential pet businesses not being included in new lists, this letter is a good starting point for getting the oversight rectified.

Legislative Sessions

The pandemic also ushered in the brand New Year with us and continues to leave a mark on our legislative processes. One of those impacts is on state session dates. All 50 states will have legislative sessions this year, and some have already seen date changes. California is one state that has postponed the start of their session. State legislative websites are the first go-to for monitoring critical calendar dates. Check these dates regularly since they may need adjustment during the session as well as before.

Burke County, North Carolina

The September 2020 issue of What’s Hot discussed the history behind and recent proposal of breeder permits in Burke County. The ordinance identified two types of breeder permits and the mandates associated with them. Public input meetings were held in August and September. The next meeting of the Animal Advisory Board, which is only required to meet quarterly, was held on December 16, 2020. According to the American Kennel Club, the Board “voted unanimously to table the breeder permit and instead work with AKC on breeder standards of care.”

Recent CFA Legislative Group Blog Posts:

UPDATE – January 2021, CURRENT TOPICS IN LEGISLATION: Consumer Protection Pet Leases and Finance Legislation Must Preserve Fancier Breeding Lease Practices

Legislation – What’s Hot, December 2020 …. Texas Agency Reviews Rules for the Licensed Breeder Program

In the two years since the first and then second posts on pet leases and finance legislation, eight states now have some version of this type of statute. The first two in 2017 were California and Nevada, followed  in 2018 by New York, Washington, Indiana, Connecticut and New Jersey and in 2020, Virginia, successful on its second try, finishing its very short legislative session before the widespread pandemic disruption of many legislatures.

Virginia’s bill, Senate Bill 742 (McPike,) was approved April 2, 2020, chaptered and effective January 1, 2021. Virginia’s bill did, as had Connecticut’s, expressly exempt only dogs breeding leases, omitting cat breeding leases as discussed in our first post on this topic and leaving uncertainty whether there was a legislative purpose for the omission or merely accommodation of a request to exempt dog breeding leases, perhaps not realizing that this is a practice of all pedigreed cat registries.

Pet lease bills introduced in 2020 and not enacted included Rhode Island Senate Bill 2272 (Crowley et al,) Michigan House bill 5273 (Sowerby et al,) and Florida CS/SB 186 introduced by the Judiciary Committee and Senator Taddeo.

We might expect additional efforts in 2021 and beyond. If breeding lease exemptions should be necessary, these should include BOTH purebred dogs AND PEDIGREED cats.