New York City Council Backdoors Breed Specific Legislation
and Totally Screws Responsible Dog Owners
The City Council's "humane" triumph prohibits responsible containment and restraint of dogs and other animals. Transparency in government? Completely Missing In Action.
Understand: with animal rights extremists start writing laws, no one wins. The whacked-out list of prohibitions and restrictions taking effect in NYC appears to include walking leashed dogs in public places.
In the "humane" war against animal ownership, is Uno the Westminster Champion Beagle the first casualty ?
Sponsor Peter Vallone Jr.'s "pit bull" hating roots
New local law 10/2011's chief cheerleader is NYC's premier pit bull (and pit bull owner) basher. Vallone encouraged the isolation, stigmatization and discrimination against law-abiding NYC residents who happened to be the "wrong" breed.
For years, City Councilman Vallone was a relentless, outspoken "pit bull" hater who repeatedly sought to brand pit bull owners as gang-banging lowlife criminals
When his proposal to ban pit bulls from New York City failed and he couldn't get his way, Vallone teamed up with animal extremists. This time around he stood shoulder to shoulder with the city's most elite animal rights types.
Flash forward to 2011
The ASPCA strongly supported Vallone's Int. 425, a proposal to restrict the proper restraint of animals, along with PeTA, HSUS, the Humane Society of New York and others.
The new law's text is here. Read it, carefully, and weep. Anybody out there ever seen a dog leash with "swivels" at both ends? Cause that's what will be required to avoid prosecution.
Int. 425-A united a fear-mongering pit bull hater with the blind ambition of politicians and animal extremists in a perfect storm of anti-animal, anti-animal owner legislation.
More than one way to skin a cat
Following Vallone's pin-headed logic, if he couldn't ban pit bulls outright, he could kick the legs out from under their owners by making their stereotypical nasty practices illegal and drive them out of the city that way.
Except Vallone doesn't know shit about dogs in general, or pit bulls specifically. And he cares even less.
A Democrat, former Manhattan Assistant DA, son of an ex City Council president and mayoral hopeful, would-be Queens Boro President Peter Vallone Jr. is all about Peter Vallone Jr
Int-425A had nothing to do with the humane treatment of dogs, and everything to do with his career aspirations.
And his humaniac co-conspirators on Int-425A? Heh. Same comments apply.
Not just pit bulls: blowback takes out unexpected targets
Heralded by Gotham's strident animal rights militants as a "huge success for dog welfare" in reality the new law invents an artificial new class of animal cruelty: one that has nothing to do with the condition of any particular animal and the care it receives.
The new law prohibits NYC dog owners from humanely and responsibly containing their dogs by proper tethering and creates substantial penalties for those who do, even if their dogs are perfectly well-cared for and healthy. All that matters in NYC is the amount of time elapsed.
NYC's new law offers no solutions and zero support for struggling owners who cannot restrain their dogs by other means. Especially in NYC, quality, dog-proof fencing is expensive and very often prohibited by zoning and/or landlord restrictions.
Dogs previously contained by proper tethering may well wind up in the hands of New York City's Animal Care and Control -- where the chances are pretty good they will sicken and die.
The Dog Federation of New Yorkthinks it stinks.
But Vallone's proposal wasn't just about tethering. Nope.
Hasty amendments on the down-low
On the very morning the proposal was heard in committee, it was amended and passed by the NYC Council's Committee on Health.
Three hours later, the City Council voted to enact the amended version. The ink on the amendments was hardly dry. Apparently the group of know-nothings that put the amendments together consulted each other, and no one else. They made a couple of teensy blunders. . .
Artificial crimes lead to unwitting perps.
Uno the Westminster Best in Show Beagle Pit Bull
The collar Uno modeled at Westminster when he took Best In Show?
The type of collar worn by virtually every dog exhibited at the world's most celebrated dog show, the Westminster Kennel Club show at Madison Square Garden?
The dog show that brings in tourists, exhibitors and camera crews to New York City from across the country and around the world ?
Well, Uno's collar is now illegal in New York City. Uno just became an honorary "pit bull."
I guess his owners are now honorary criminal gangbanging lowlifes. Welcome to the club.
ASPCA "humane law enforcement officers" swarming Westminster?
So, will spectators at Madison Square Garden be treated to the sight of an ASPCA raid? With something like 2500 entrants at Westminster, virtually all wearing dogfighting paraphernalia . . .um nasty pit bull equipment . . .uh show dog collars no, no make that "prohibited choke collars" it would sure make for a great episode on Animal Planet. Imagine the royalties.
In fact, NYC's new law is so extraordinarily poorly written that it appears to prohibit walking a leashed dog at all.
Go west, kennel club. Go west.
To the Members of the Board of the Westminster Kennel Club: take your show to New Jersey. Please.
The Meadowlands would welcome you with open arms.
And the parking is way cheaper.
It's clear that New York City doesn't want you, doesn't value the millions of dollars you bring to the local economy each year and all the free positive publicity you generate for the city.
The City Council considers your practices abusive. They think Uno the show dog was suffering on the night he took Best In Show.
Its time to blow that fire trap, and leave the explanations to Peter Vallone Jr. and the ASPCA.
I'm thinking Mayor Bloomberg, the rest of the City Council -- not to mention the owners of Madison Square Garden and other NYC businesses and their many, many employees, that will miss Westminster -- are going to be interested in hearing them.