On 03/24/2021 Appleton’s Safety and Licensing Committee took up Resolution #3-R-21 “Prohibition on Large Scale Commercial Dog and Cat Breeding”.
This resolution was submitted by Alderpersons Maiyoua Thao (District 7), Denise Fenton (District 6), and Vered Meltzer (District 2) and states that “no pet store shall sell, deliver, offer for sale, barter, auction, give away, or otherwise transfer or dispose of cats or dogs.” It does allow pet stores to work with rescue organizations to display cats and dogs for adoption, however “Dogs may not be kept overnight.”
Alderperson William Siebers (District 1) was interested in the language preventing dogs from being kept overnight and asked if one of the resolution sponsors could speak to that.
Alderperson Fenton said it was her understanding that that language was added for the safety of the animals. If pet stores don’t have the facilities to take care of the dogs overnight, then dogs shouldn’t be left there.
Alderperson Siebers responded that the language didn’t say anything about them not being able to keep them if they don’t have the facilities. It just said pet stores couldn’t keep them overnight. He asked Alderperson Thao to speak to that.
Alderperson Thao said she had nothing to add to Alderperson Fenton’s answer. She said city attorney Darrin Glad was there if there was something he wanted to find out.
Attorney Glad said that when he was approached by Alderperson Meltzer about creating this resolution, he was given the Oshkosh ordinance regarding this issue. He reconciled that with the Appleton language and the county structure. He didn’t recall if the Oshkosh ordinance had the language regarding dogs being kept overnight and he was unable to call the ordinance up on his phone. Going off of his memory, he thought that language was taken from the Oshkosh ordinance. But he added that it may not have been and that one of the authors could have inserted it. He did not think this was a huge issue in vetting the proposed resolution.
Alderperson Siebers said they received a letter from the pet stores in the area saying that they are all in favor of this resolution. He himself, however, was not sure about the language preventing dogs from being kept overnight, but he didn’t want to do anything in terms of removing that at this time. He asked if anyone else had anything to add to the discussion.
Alderperson Thao wanted to thank the committee for taking this up and appreciated the help of Attorney Glad on getting the right language and making sure that it would fit within the city’s municipal code. She also wanted to thank her constituents who took time to go to the pet stores and ask them to sign on to this. She believed the committee had received the letter that all the pet stores supported this resolution.
Alderperson Seibers asked if there were any more discussion questions, then asked everyone to signal their support by saying “aye.” They took a vote but Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) wanted to speak. Alderperson Siebers confirmed with the attorney that they could continue the discussion since the vote had not been recorded yet.
Alderperson Schultz apologized [he had arrived to the meeting late] and mentioned that technology is sometimes a challenge. He said that he was pursuing some kind of certification for the city [I had my volume up as high as it would go but it was hard to hear some of what he said] and that this was one of the things that the city needed to address. He was fully in support of it and said that they could always address issues with the language in the future, but they should get it passed now and take a look at that language in the future.
There was no further discussion and the committee voted unanimously to approve the resolution.
View full meeting details here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=819132&GUID=4B05AA6B-37FF-495A-AE2B-FF6C207E956F&Options=info|&Search=
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