CA AB 1634 (LEVINE/NAVA/
Act" remaining in the Senate Local Government Committee following its
July 11 hearing when testimony but not vote was taken, has not been
scheduled for hearing in January 2008 despite recent publicity and
internet activity by proponents. However, this bill would not need
to clear a policy committee until mid to late June. Meanwhile, chief
proponent Judie Mancuso's "Social Compassion in Legislation" has
dropped Republican political law firm Nielsen, Merksamer and Jim
Gross, who testified in their behalf on July 11, and hired another
Republican lobbying firm, Platinum Advisors LLC and lobbyist, Brett
Granlund, formerly a Republican Assembly member from 1994-2000. A
daily ad is running within the text of "The Roundup", a daily email
publication of the editors of Capitol Weekly, promoting this bill as
the answer to make up nearly a third of the projected state budget
deficit.
*****
CALIFORNIA ANIMAL SELLER LAWS was a topic too tempting for either Ms.
Mancuso or City of Los Angeles Department of Animal Services General
Manager Ed Boks to resist when it came in a neat, anti-breeder
package from Aptos attorney Sandford (Sandy) Ettinger, a local
shelter personality in Santa Cruz County. Mancuso circulated this as
an email, and Boks posted it on his blog, linked to the city DAS
site.
http://www.laanimal
At best, this could be notes for a draft of a how to "get" breeders;
as published it is embarrassingly inaccurate and misleading,
particularly for personal publication by Boks, in his official
capacity.
The piece opens with how to detect and report breeders as state and
federal tax evaders, assuming that sellers are either operating in an
underground economy or outright criminal tax evaders when sellers are
entitled to deduction of expenses, to the extent of income for hobby
filers and for losses for business filers. It then cites the August
policy change of the Department of Equalization, Publication 122,
requiring seller permits and collection of sales tax for sales of
more than 2 individual pet animals, regardless of price.
http://www.boe.
See our August 12, 2007 publication for a discussion of this
development and its ramifications. The piece moves on to "lemon
laws" by completely mis-stating the threshold for the Lockyer-Polanco-
Far Pet Protection Act, confusing it with the original threshold for
the Polanco-Lockyer Pet Breeder Warranty Act that never included
cats. Because the actual threshold for Lockyer-Polanco-
references the requirement for a BOE seller permit, the recent BOE
policy change has cast uncertainty on obviously incongruous and
unintended consequences of overly broad application of the threshold
beyond retail pet stores. It goes on to give short shrift to Polanco-
Lockyer, but emphasizes long prison terms for felony cruelty and sets
out a list of 9 possible topics of local laws that breeders and
sellers might be violating, if locally applicable. Saving the worst
for last, it concludes with a claim that the federal Animal Welfare
Act requires "licensing of breeders who have four or more breeding
dogs or cats and who sell their puppies or kittens, or other breeders
who sell puppies or kittens raised by other breeders." While a link
to AWA is included, anyone literate in animal law knows that this is
an incorrect interpretation of the current dealer licensing
regulatory exemptions requiring licensing of ONLY those with more
than 3 breeding female dogs or cats who sell at wholesale, i.e. not
directly to individual pet buyers.
Ironically, the writer and re-publishers missed commonly overlooked
requirements that can trap unsuspecting sellers. Penal Code 597z
requires prior written authorization by a California licensed
veterinarian to sell a dog under 8 weeks (some local ordinances
prohibit this altogether), and the Rosenthal dog pedigree disclosure
law requires that sales of dogs sold as registrable include a written
statutory disclosure that is also conspicuously posted notice in at
least 100 point type. Damages for the latter are three times the
purchase price, and this has amounted to "highway robbery" type
shakedowns for unwitting breeders. For further information on
California law, see
http://www.theanima
*****
NGUYEN V COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES is a newly filed Los Angeles Superior
Court case seeking a writ of mandate and injunctive relief for a long
list of alleged violations of California law and of individuals'
rights by the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and
Control and its personnel. This follows the earlier and successful
Lock v. County of Kern, filed in 2004 and tried in 2006. Plaintiffs'
counsel in the Los Angeles County case is Eisenberg, Raizman,
Thurston and Wong – current firm of Orly Degani, an extremely
successful animal law litigator fresh from the successful
representation of the City of West Hollywood in the California
Veterinary Medical Association'
prohibiting declawing of cats. See the Veterinary section of our
above Reference page for more information on the CVMA case. For
additional information on this LA County case as well as the
expanding list of Los Angeles County cities enacting the County's
mandatory spay neuter ordinance, see the LA County section at
http://www.theanima
Nathan Winograd's No Kill Advocacy Center is also a named plaintiff
in addition to the two named individuals in this LA County case, and
he had provided a Declaration about shelter standards in the Kern
County case. While Winograd has always been our strategic ally in
the thesis that shelter euthanasia is a function of shelter practices
rather than owners' inability to keep own animals and that government
mandates on individuals are neither effective nor desirable, it
behooves us to keep in mind that he is not an advocate for our
specific interests no matter how much we may support his efforts
to "shift the paradigm" of shelter thinking, to borrow that phrase so
often used dismiss our interests. In shorthand, this case is Nathan
versus Marcia, familiar characters to our readers. The case may or
may not ultimately benefit our interests beyond its enticing appeal
as a new chapter of an ongoing story pitting familiar characters
against one another in new, unexpected plot twists. At the least,
who needs those striking television writers with the promise of this
new drama?
*****
*a service of THE ANIMAL COUNCIL, P.O. BOX 168, MILLBRAE CA 94030
Contact us at <TheAnimalCouncil@
URL <http://www.theanima
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