The Morning Call Archives

Copyright © 2009 The Morning Call

ID: 4420795
Publication Date: August 9, 2009
Day: Sunday
Page: A1
Edition: FIRST
Section: News
Type: Local
Dateline:
Column:
Length: long

Byline: By Christopher Baxter OF THE MORNING CALL

Headline: Lions and tigers and bears –no more? **Bangor proposes
banning exotic animals and limiting household pets to three.

About this time last year, a Bangor resident called the borough offices
about owning a pet cat -- actually, a lion. "I'm interested in purchasing a
lion, and I wanted to know if there are any laws that restrict ownership,"
the woman said.

""You mean a lion-lion?' code enforcement officer Rick Fisher asked her.
"Yes, a lion," she said.

"As a pet?" he asked.

"Yes, as a pet," she said.

Fisher said he would check Bangor's ordinance.

It turns out, no borough law prevents residents from owning lions -- or

tigers, or bears, or pythons, or venomous lizards or man-eating fish. The
only outlawed animal? The only one singled out in an ordinance? The pot-
bellied pig.

"I went right to our borough manager and said, "Uhh, I think we might
need to update our animal ordinance,"' Fisher said. "I don't think we want
future residents walking their tigers down Market Street."

Seeking more legal teeth to counteract such exotic visitors, borough

officials have proposed banning pet wild animals. But they're taking
precautions one step further by prohibiting farm dwellers such as cattle,
goats, sheep and horses, and -- in one sure-to-be controversial clause --
limiting residents to three four-legged pets more than 6 months old.

An animal lover himself, Fisher admits some people may object to the
proposed limit. A family with two cats, a dog and a gerbil, for example,
would be in violation of the law, and while the borough has no plans to go
door to door counting pets, a neighbor's complaint could result in a $1,000
fine for violators.

"It's ridiculous," Laura Budetich said of the four-legged pet limit, as her
dog, Toby, tumbled with a friend in her Pennsylvania Avenue yard
Saturday afternoon. Owner of a cat named Princess too, Budetich saw a
four-pet home in her future.

"So you're telling me that when my two daughters each want a guinea pig
we can only have one?"

While she's never seen a jungle animal prowling in her neighborhood,

Budetich took the prospect in stride. "All I can say is if you're going to
have a tiger, you better declaw that thing," she said.

Bangor council President Craig Roberts said the borough came up with
the three-pet limit as an average of other ordinances they reviewed.
Roberts didn't know if residents already with more than three pets would
be grandfathered if the ordinance passes.

In Bethlehem, ordinances restrict residents to six animals older than 6

months. In Wind Gap, ordinances state that no more than four animals
may be kept as pets.

Holly Fishel, director of research for the Pennsylvania State Association

of Township Supervisors, said ordinances limiting pets are common. Most
spell out what types of pets and how many people can own.

"For example, if you live in an apartment, you can't have a cow," Fishel
said.

The objective, Fisher said, is not to inspect each home to enforce the rule,
but rather to give borough officials legal support when residents log
complaints. And those complaints have been numerous in the past few
years, he said.

On Pennsylvania Avenue, Fisher responded to neighbors' complaints

about the odor of urine. A woman taking in stray cats -- she had 11 --
created a communal litter box in a small, plastic swimming pool in her
basement, he said.

"I walked in and said, "OK, I couldn't live in this place,"' Fisher said. "The
woman told me her husband was in charge of cleaning the kitty litter. He
had blocked sinuses."

In some apartments, Fisher said, people are keeping large dogs such as pit
bulls in confined spaces while they go to work all day. In the meantime,
the dogs scratch the doors and tear up the rugs, he said.

"The question really is, "Is this fair to the dogs?"' Fisher said. "That's the
reason for the limit. But mainly we're concerned about the exotic
animals."

Under the proposed rules, any closet puma tamer or monkey keeper will
have to apply for a $5 permit from the borough. Once an exotic animal
dies, or if it is sold, it cannot be replaced. Banned exotic or wild animals
would include crocodiles, porcupines and yes, Bethlehem residents, even
ferrets.

When the Lehigh Valley's second-largest city moved in 1997 to ban any
new exotic animals, resident ferret fans called on council to exclude their
furry friends from the list. They lost.

Allentown thought it had the problem licked with a long-standing

ordinance prohibiting farm or exotic animals in the city. But then came
Lucyl, the pesky pot-bellied pig, who refused to budge until a judge fined
her owner, Judy Newhardt, in 1997 and ordered the pig purged. Dax,
another pig living in the city, got an eviction notice in 1998.

But unlike Bangor's proposed ordinance, Allentown neglected pigeons.

That story surfaced last month after Curt Groller complained about the
cooing from the three dozen pigeons his neighbor, Rene Ales, was
keeping. The flap ended when Ales voluntarily moved the flock.

Pigeons -- specifically carrier pigeons -- in Bangor would be permitted but

must be registered, according to the proposed ordinance. Construction of
the coop, however, must "meet the requirements of all zoning and
building codes."

Local regulations banning wild or exotic animals are the only sure-fire
way to keep the pets out of the community, said Jerry Feaser, spokesman
for the Pennsylvania Game Commission. Without local laws prohibiting
exotic animals, the commission will issue a permit.
If history serves as any indication, even laws don't keep people from
harboring unusual pets. A week after the Bangor woman called about the
lion, Fisher saw a man walking two pot-bellied pigs down Broadway.

"Now that, I could actually do something about," he said. "But the guy
was only visiting for a few weeks with his pigs."

MEETING ON PET ORDINANCE

Bangor Council on Monday night will consider an ordinance to ban wild

or exotic pets in the borough and limit four-legged household pets to
three.

The meeting will be at 7 p.m. at the Bangor Bee Hive Building, 197
Pennsylvania Ave.