Proposal calls for pet stores to post breeder info

Based on an idea from a half-dozen Hillsborough County women, Brevard County Commission Vice Chair Bryan Lober now wants to require pet stores to post breeder information on their dog and cat cages so would-be customers can do research before buying an animal.

But that addition to Lober’s proposed Pet Retail Ordinance last week sent it back to the drawing board for a third time since he submitted the first version to his colleagues in January. “Adding this new mandate requires an additional advertisement and a new reading,” Lober, of Rockledge, said following the March 26 meeting.

Lober seeks to eliminate what animal advocates call “puppy mills” and “kitten factories,” those breeders who produce hundreds of pups and kittens each year and have been cited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for health and wellness violations.

The way to close puppy mills down, he says, is to prevent pet stores from getting their animals from the mass breeders. Lober said the latest proposal limits acceptable breeders to those who haven’t had any USDA citations for four years.

Early in the latest discussion, Commissioner Rita Pritchett, of Titusville, asked Lober to include a clause encouraging pet stores to post tags on each cage naming the breeder, providing its address and its USDA account number. Lober liked the idea so much he made it a requirement, not just an encouragement.

“An encouragement has no teeth. It means the pet stores can take this ordinance and use it as toilet paper,” he said. He hopes the latest version of the ordinance can be up for final action at the commission’s April 9 meeting.

Pritchett said she got the idea of posting breeder data from several women, most in their 20s, who have driven from Hillsborough County three times so far to hear each of Lober’s ordinance versions.

They sit together and all wear powder-blue T-shirts emblazoned with their group’s name, “My Puppy, My Choice.” They say their campaign is to stand up for animals and inform people that such ordinances like Lober’s would actually hurt animals by leaving pet stores to get animals from unregulated sources, like rescue agencies, instead of regulated breeders.

The group in May 2017 opposed Hillsborough County’s similar proposal to fight puppy mills. That county worked out a compromise with the My Puppy, My Choice group, grandfathering in existing pet stores but barring new ones from selling puppies.

Brandon resident Alexandra Julian, 23, manager of the All About Puppies store there, said they want to prevent underground animal sales anywhere they can, not just in Hillsborough.

“It’s still animals suffering if these ordinances pass,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what county they’re in.”

Lober won a 3-2 vote from his colleagues to re-advertise the ordinance. Pritchett and Chair Kristine Isnardi, of Palm Bay, voted in favor, while commissioners John Tobia and Curt Smith opposed.

Tobia, of Grant-Valkaria, said he wasn’t comfortable with the number of versions of the ordinance produced since January.

Smith, of Melbourne, said he didn’t want to push pet sales underground to unregulated sources.

“This is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist (in Brevard),” he said.

Lober’s effort has drawn fire in recent months from Bill Jacobson, owner of the Puppies Plus store in the Melbourne Square mall. Jacobson and his supporters say the proposed ordinance, with its requirement for store owners to visit breeders once a year, would end his 21-year business.

But in the March 26 meeting, Lober caught heat from an ally as well. Hallandale Beach City Commissioner Michele Lazarow, who drove to the meeting from Broward County, chided Lober for negotiating away the stronger parts of his proposal, such as letting hobby breeders produce up to 48 puppies a year instead of 20.

“This is not the ordinance I heard two weeks ago,” she said. “This ordinance protects the businesses we agreed to stop. They’ll get nothing better than this (unenforceable law).”

Lazarow is the founder of the South Florida-based Animal Defense Coalition. Its website claims credit for anti-puppy-mill laws throughout Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

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