Curb your roosters!

Next Tuesday while Council District 2 selects its new council representative in a special election, the Los Angeles City Council will be voting on an ordinance that would allow only one rooster per property. People in more rural areas that often surround our regional parks sometimes keep roosters as pets. My neighbor across the street has six of the damn things! They're all terribly pretty, but dear-lord-are-they-obnoxious. Right up there with the other neighbor's dog who barks 24-7.

The Public Safety Committee led by Greig Smith nowadays approved the ordinance Monday citing noise, odor, health and cleanliness issues supposedly posed by keeping multiple roosters. My neighbor is pretty much a clean-freak with her roosters, which kind of defies the cleanliness assertion. The better guess is that what they are really after is a way to give probable cause for peace officers to investigate "suspicious crowing" in search of illegal cock-fighting operations. Cock fighting is abhorrent, and so are the conditions that drive people to engage in this cruel activity.

People who already own several roosters would be allowed to keep up to three of them as pets if they are microchipped or fitted with a city-approved I.D. leg band and they must be housed at least 100 feet from neighboring homes. No word on the cost of these leg bands, but microchipping runs $20-$30 usually with an annual fee to keep the database up with current information.  As for the housing thing, my neighbor doesn't even bother to house her roosters - they sleep in the trees about 25' from my house and they think sunrise is 3am.

Licensed roosters would be allowed to live out their natural lives, but no "replacement roosters" would be allowed. (Yay!) Violations would result in a $50 fine for the first offense, $100 for the second and $250 for the third.

Anyone know the PC for "suspicious crowing"? 


(PC - penal code)

Image from http://www.jackkenner.com/rost4.html