City Seeks to Prohibit the Selling of Dogs and Cats in Pet Stores

How much is that doggie in the window?

Not for sale at any price, under a preliminary ordinance banning the sale of cats and dogs unanimously approved by the City Council on Tuesday.

The measure is up for final consideration on April 13.

Although no store in Hermosa Beach currently sells dogs or cats, the ban is intended to encourage residents to adopt from shelters to help reduce animal over-population, according to Councilman Jeff Duclos, who proposed the ordinance.

The ban follows a precedent set by West Hollywood and South Lake Tahoe, the only other California cities to prohibit such sales.

"It's just best management practices," Duclos said. "My position is, let's deal with situations before they're situations, and I think you're going to see a number of cities start falling in line with that."

City Manager Steve Burrell concurred, calling the proposed ordinance "the beginning of the emphasis of cutting down on the number of puppy mills and cat factories."

More than half of all dogs and nearly three-quarters of all cats that enter shelters are euthanized, according to the American Humane Association.

An estimated 3.7 million cats and dogs were destroyed in 2008.

"There are too many animals in shelters that don't get a chance to wait as long as they need to find a home," said Madeline Bernstein,  president of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Los Angeles.

Bernstein said she hopes that other cities will follow Hermosa Beach's example and that the country will start "ignoring puppy mills to death."

Breeders who operate so called "puppy mills" and "kitten factories" contribute to a glut of animals that results in the death of many potential pets left to languish in shelters. 

"If all the pet shops didn't take in newly created animals and just placed animals up for adoption that were already in existence, we would have a chance at getting a handle on the pet animal population problem," Bernstein said.

Cat adoptions take place at the VCA Animal Coast Hospital in Hermosa Beach every Thursday from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. and on Sundays from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. All cats are healthy, spayed/neutered, up to date with shots and identification microchips and tested for feline immunodeficiency virus.