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A year ago this month I wrote about how some cities across the country were thinking of initiating a ban on dog and cat sales at pet stores. The purpose of the move was to strike a blow to puppy and kitten mills, which sometimes supply to pet stores. Animal rights advocates also hoped to encourage prospective pet owners to consider adopting a homeless pet from a shelter.
According to the LA Times, in San Francisco at least the ban never took place, though it was never completely withdrawn. Proponents of the ban tried to expand it to include fish and birds as well, which can also come from “mills” with inhumane conditions, and that addition has stalled the bill for the past year.
Now the ban, called The Humane Pet Acquisition Proposal, has been retooled and is on its way to being submitted to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. This updated piece of legislation would, if passed, ban the sale of any domesticated animals as pets in the entire city. It includes everything: cats, dogs, fish, birds, lizards, rodents, and amphibians.
Responding to criticism about the possible economic impact of the Humane Pet Acquisition Proposal, its authors claim that few stores in the city actually sell pets. They say it’s a symbolic move aimed at educating the public on humane adoptions. They also hope it will open the doors to finding a way to legislate online sales of pets, where puppy and kitten mills do their real business nowadays.
That leads one to wonder, however, why advocates of The Humane Pet Acquisition Proposal didn’t just go straight after these online sales. Shutting down all pet shops across the board in the entire city seems a bit extreme for what is essentially a token move.
What about the honest pet shop owner, one who might be a dedicated animal lover? In its article on the subject the LA Times interviewed one of these, Animal Connection owner Jonathan Ito. His store has sold fish, birds, rodents, and amphibians – just about every common pet aside from dogs and cats – for decades.
Ito says the move, which would allow him to continue selling pet products, would still put him out of business and his employees out of work. He says he’s always striven to educate his customers on proper animal care. He’s one of the good guys, he says, who’ll get steamrolled by the misguided intentions of people with whom he should be on the same side.
I was somewhat in support of the ban when I first heard about it last year. But now that I’ve read its proponents claiming that the move is mostly symbolic, I’m even less certain. I don’t think it’s fair to destroy the livelihood of good people to try to get at mill owners.
I’ve never been sure why it’s so hard to just go directly after puppy and kitten mills. Perhaps it’s hard to prove which establishments are mills and which aren’t? But then it’d be even harder to prove which stores get their animals from mills and which don’t, I’d think.
I almost always find myself on the side of animal advocates, but this time I think those in San Francisco might be going too far. They ought to focus their efforts on the real villains of the piece, the mill owners, rather than going for what’s simpler. Doing the right thing isn’t always easy; that’s how you know it’s the right thing.
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*(This image by Hugo90 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.)
