I'm never quite sure how to refer to Ron Kaye. Owner? Master? The old guy who feeds me?
Anyway, Ron posted one of those funny videos of the City Council debating taxes or something headlined "All They Want Is Your Money ...."
These "debates" are either sleep inducing or hilarious, depending on your point of view. Most of the time, they make you want to move out of LA. But get ready, I learned this afternoon on the Dog Trainer's website they also want your roosters!
Cock-a-doodle-do!
According to the trainer, roosters "are a serious menace, causing noise, foul odors and public sanitation issues. They drag down property values, disrupt the peace in neighborhoods and can harbor deadly illnesses. They even give rise to criminal and gang activities that residents are afraid to report for fear of retaliation."
Good God! And the neighbors think I'm bad.
Turns out this is a long-running issue -- cock fighting is frowned upon and the birds carry a lot of diseases -- and the city's Public Safety Committee approved an ordinance today to limit the number of roosters to one per property.
And set your DVRs and Tivos, it's going to the City Council.
Given what happened during the debate over the fate of Billy the elephant, I can't wait for this one. Who'll be the first to refer to the birds as "cocks?" (Ha-ha, he said cock.") Will Tony Cardenas suggest a rooster sanctuary in the San Fernando Valley, where I guess a lot of them crow now?
And will the mayor support the ordinance. After all, he might have seen an animal or two during his recent trip to Africa with girlfriend Lu Parker. Don't laugh, it might have happened.
For those of with more than one rooster in your yard, probably sitting on the carcass of rusted out old car, there is hope.
If the ordinance prevails, anyone wishing to keep more than one of their current pet roosters will have to secure a permit from the Department of Animal Services by the end of the year. The additional animals will have to be micro-chipped or fitted with a city-approved leg band for permanent identification, and owners may be charged a one-time permit fee. The licensed roosters will be allowed to live out the remainder of their lives, but no "replacement roosters" will be approved.
Maybe in a cock sanctuary in the Valley. There, I said it!
Woof!
Anyway, Ron posted one of those funny videos of the City Council debating taxes or something headlined "All They Want Is Your Money ...."
These "debates" are either sleep inducing or hilarious, depending on your point of view. Most of the time, they make you want to move out of LA. But get ready, I learned this afternoon on the Dog Trainer's website they also want your roosters!
Cock-a-doodle-do!
According to the trainer, roosters "are a serious menace, causing noise, foul odors and public sanitation issues. They drag down property values, disrupt the peace in neighborhoods and can harbor deadly illnesses. They even give rise to criminal and gang activities that residents are afraid to report for fear of retaliation."
Good God! And the neighbors think I'm bad.
Turns out this is a long-running issue -- cock fighting is frowned upon and the birds carry a lot of diseases -- and the city's Public Safety Committee approved an ordinance today to limit the number of roosters to one per property.
And set your DVRs and Tivos, it's going to the City Council.
Given what happened during the debate over the fate of Billy the elephant, I can't wait for this one. Who'll be the first to refer to the birds as "cocks?" (Ha-ha, he said cock.") Will Tony Cardenas suggest a rooster sanctuary in the San Fernando Valley, where I guess a lot of them crow now? And will the mayor support the ordinance. After all, he might have seen an animal or two during his recent trip to Africa with girlfriend Lu Parker. Don't laugh, it might have happened.
For those of with more than one rooster in your yard, probably sitting on the carcass of rusted out old car, there is hope.
If the ordinance prevails, anyone wishing to keep more than one of their current pet roosters will have to secure a permit from the Department of Animal Services by the end of the year. The additional animals will have to be micro-chipped or fitted with a city-approved leg band for permanent identification, and owners may be charged a one-time permit fee. The licensed roosters will be allowed to live out the remainder of their lives, but no "replacement roosters" will be approved.
Maybe in a cock sanctuary in the Valley. There, I said it!
Woof!
Ron Kaye is the former editor of the Los Angeles Daily News where he spent 23 years helping to make the newspaper the voice of the San Fernando Valley and fighting for a city government that serves the people and not special interests.
Twice in recent years, Los Angeles Magazine listed Kaye among the city’s most influential people, specifically in the area of politics. Kaye has been variously described in the media as the “accidental anarchist,” “the Patrick Henry of the San Fernando Valley” and a “passionate populist.” He is now committed to
carrying on his crusade for a greater Los Angeles as an ordinary citizen. Previously, Ron worked at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner,
Associated Press, Cleveland Plain Dealer and The Australian as well as papers
in Fairbanks, Alaska and Yakima, Wash. He also wrote for Newsweek magazine, The Guardian in London and the National Enquirer.
My neighbor has five of the crowing bastards, but then I live in a very rural area -- Lake View Terrace, where we have horsies, and doggies, and goats, and sheep, and llamas, and ....
I don't realy see the need for more than one in general. I think my neighbor rescues those that she finds in outdoor markets waiting to be rooster stew, quite honestly. This ordinance will hurt her and others emotionally, but it might stop the needless death through the cruelty of cock fights.
So now, how are the bastons of goodness and righteousness in the City Council going to stop dog fights???????
By the way, have you ever been in the post office and heard roosters crowing in the back room? I certainly have. Seems to me tracking the senders and recipients of those crowing boxes might be one way to deal with the issue.
I've long been concerned about the health risk aspects of people living with barnyard foul, goats, swine and other animals. That proximity between animals and humans is how bird and swine flu both started in China and spread around the world.
Normally it's a lifestyle only seen in rural poverty areas and impoverished third-world tenements, something we thought we'd overcome in this country about 100 years ago when the poorest of Europe's and Asia's immigrants crowed our cities. I'd like to see communication with the CDC on this as well.
Good to know that Greig Smith as new head of Public Safety replacing Weiss has more on his mind than battling with Bratton over whose ego is bigger (Orlov's headline in his Tipoffs) and who knows best when it comes to running LAPD.
You might think this is another one of those silly micro-laws the City Council wastes so much time on.
Actually, backyard chickens are a hot new green trend with the “buy local” crowd. Brace yourself: chickens are coming to a back yard near you.
Backyard chickens don’t really need roosters. If you want to start a brood of your own, you can just mail order ready-to-hatch eggs. Before you know it, however, people are going to discover the joy of exotic breeds and backyard roosters are bound to make a comeback.
This may be one of those rare instances when the City Council is actually acting ahead of the curve.
Don't know where you been, dog, but the rooster thing was voted on last year. No rooster vote tomorrow on the City Council's Calendar.
BTW, the roosters lost.
And to the moron worried about Avian Flu, furgetta boutit. There's more health risk in the lady sleeping with a monkey, or you sleeping with a dog. This ain't Asia, stupid.
And ignore WHO. They lie.
Why does Antonio Villaraigosa exist?
8:45 = an idiot. I'll take WHO any day over this conspiracy theorist kook. Yes I'm sure WHO is engaged in a worldwide conspiracy to...?
Backyard livestock in LA is hardly a new thing, and for those of us living in a more rural area like LVT, we keep our yards, pens, and animals CLEAN and HEALTHY with regular innoculations and other animal health maintenance activities.
Issues with sanitation and animal disease occur where this isn't the norm.
So I guess the point is: do not make wholesale statements like this, and stay away from messing with my lifestyle. I work ****ing hard and live in the most hell hot part of the city so I can have my pets, and I sure as hell will not be losing them to idiots using half-truths as propoganda and scare tactics.
The Anon Hillbilly @ 8:29 in LVT (what's that?) is someone who SHOULD secede from LA. Sorry you find it such a burden to live "in the most hell hot part of the city" just so you can have your "pets" (you have chickens and roosters as pets?) but sounds like you'd be happier somewhere else, and I should would feel safer if you took your barnyard and lifestyle and contempt for the health, safety and quality of life of others with you. Unless barnyards are cleaned daily and thoroughly, their filth attracts vermin and other infestations, ammonia builds up to levels that cause serious air pollution and allergic reactions to neighbors, and it's all disgusting.
I for one would much rather live next door to a house where there's been a quiet conversion of a single-family to a duplex, what has tied Ron into knots, wrong as that is, than next to a noisy barnyard where roosters crow before dawn and stink all day. Property values plummet.
Nice try, person trying to push this as some sort of up and coming upscale trend: that one left the station fast as it came. Did you see the episodes on the Kardashians where the dumb agent-hustler-faddista mom was persuaded by her trainer to put some chickens in their Calabasas backyard, to have fresh eggs? They have a HUGE private estate by the way, not some crowded place like the south and east LA neighborhoods which are the problem. As soon as she realized the creatures pee, poo and stink, she and her trendista daughters couldn't get rid of the things fast enough. Even with the maid chasing the creatures around, it was too much for them.
That's not what we're talking about here, anyway. We're talking poverty conditions without the regular health inspections that would ensure minimum health and safety standards. AND we sure can't afford to have city or even county health inspectors to check out everyone's chickens when we can't afford health inspectors for hospitals and clinics, or even inspectors for billboards that are supposed to be self-supported from fees. Nor do I want our cops to be even more bogged down in issues pertaining to cockfighting, and dealing with noise and nuisance complaints from roosters, goats and swine.
If these are your idea of "pets" just go away.
It's far from a scare tactic and propaganda to be very concerned with the spread of swine and Avian flu, and "issues with santitation and animal disease" are very much a vital concern here. This issue has to do largely with the roosters and chickens of south and east L A -- the Times ran a series of stories about this problem some months ago, about how this transplatation of the Mexican/ Central American peasant lifestyle has transformed their neighborhoods.
I'm guessing the 12,000 or so LA citizens in LVT who live there to enjoy their rural lifestyle think you are totally wrong.
Shadow Hills has a very rural lifestyle they strongly defend, and the area is for the most part fairly affluent.
I can't get over the absurd decisions made by the City Council. The City Council should not apply blanket restrictions on roosters, citywide. If citizens have a concern over rural activities, such as keeping roosters, why not create "rural" districts so that some people can enjoy these activities, in the communities that appreciate it. These are typically AG zoned areas in the city, but also can be applied to any area of the city that are designated a "rural district".
The concept of a "district" has been applied in many planning areas of the city, such as "horse districts", "historic districts", "sign districts", etc. This can be done with rural animals, such as roosters in a "rural district" concept.
I just wanted to say how I liked this! I was goofing off on some different blogs when I found your website. After checking out this website I've come up with some good ideas for a new website. I just thought I'd let you in on it