HOW YOU CAN HELP ANIMALS!
Understand That Chicago's Ban Against Companion Animal Retail Sales Isn't A Complete Prohibition (Part II)
ISAR's chairman, Professor Henry Mark
Holzer, issued the following statement:
In ISAR's current E-Newsletter/Blog
--"HOW YOU CAN HELP
ANIMALS!/Understand that Chicago's Ban Against Companion Animal Retail Sales
Isn't A Complete Prohibition"-- we quoted the core provision of the
recently enacted city ordinance:
Section 4-384-015 (b): "A retailer may offer for sale
only those dogs, cats or rabbits that the retailer has obtained from (1) an
animal control center, animal care facility, kennel, pound or training facility
operated by any subdivision of local, state or federal government; or (2) a
humane society or rescue organization." (Our emphasis.)
We deliberately emphasized the word
"kennel" because as we then wrote, ". . . please note that the
Chicago ordinance still allows sale by kennels. ISAR opposes this breeder
exemption."
Among the responses to that portion
of our E-Newsletter/Blog was this polite but uninformed email from an animal
protection activist: "I don't think ISAR's analysis is correct. There is
no exemption for breeders -- when the Chicago statutes refer to 'kennels' they
are referring to any government operated facility, e.g. 'pound.' No government
entity will be in the business of breeding animals ...."
Sadly, the drafters of the ordinance have made it easy for
those like the activist to misunderstand the importance of the law. Please note
these three points:
(1) Section (b) specifies five exemptions from the
ordinance's requirements, of which a kennel is one;
(2) According to Webster's New World Dictionary of the
American Language, the primary definition of "kennel" is "a
place where dogs are bred or kept," (our emphasis), meaning,
as we said, that use of the word "kennel" in the ordinance acts to
create an exemption that can be read to gut the entire ordinance; and
(3) The ordinance's words "state or federal
government" are intended to, and do, plainly refer not to kennels, but
rather to the words that precede "state or local
government," namely "pound or training facility operated by any
subdivision of local. . . ..."
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