KC DOG BLOG

Denver changes law regarding pit bulls, lies about it, & Denver's opportunity to vote them out

Late last week, news came out about a slight change to the city's 20 year old ban on 'pit bulls'.

Quietly, without any public input, the city adopted a policy that any 'pit bull' that is identified as a service dog will not be impounded. This reverses a decision in which the city stubbornly refused to come into compliance with the official ADA ruling regarding service dogs by voting 9-4 against changes in December.

The change comes as the city is facing several class-action lawsuits from a disabled people who are using 'pit bulls' as service animals.

However, even in changing the rules, Denver still appears to be in violation of the ADA because they put policies in place that allow them to investigate a service animal to "verify or disaffirm an owner, keeper or possessor's claim that the pit bull is a qualified service animal."  This investigation can include checking to be sure the dog is not aggressive toward people or other animals, is tolerant of strange sights, sounds, odors, etc in a "wide variety" of public settings, and ignores food dropped on the floor in the dog's vicinity while working outside the home. Such interrogation is not allowed under the ADA (I can already see ACO Doug Kelley trying to confiscate a service dog now for having an affinity for peperoni sticks).

The Denver rules do allow the dog to be confiscated if the dog is determined to be a threat based on its behavior or actions on a case-by-case basis. This is allowed under the ADA -- and is actually the most effective policy regardless of whether the dog is a service dog or not.

You can read the policy in its entirety here (it's 4 pages).

Meanwhile, apparently Doug Kelley is now saying that these exemptions for service dogs have been allowed all along. According to an article in the Denver Daily News, Kelley said:

"We have always allowed pit bulls as service dogs. I think what they're talking about is it was memorialized in writing."

I guess that's one way to look at it. But interesting that this comes up 6 months after the city voted to NOT allow for exemptions. In that meeting, Councilman Charlie Brown urged his colleagues to not "roll over and play dead" when it comes to abiding by the federal law and also expressed concern that people would "game the system" to keep aggressive dogs by saying they were service dogs. He even warned about "Paraplegic drug dealers".  No kidding.

After that meeting, the Assistant City Attorney David Broadwell declined do comment about the council's decision saying:

"Projecting who might sue us, or how they might sue us, is something with some senstivitiy around it."

That doesn't sound like the words of people who always felt there was an exemption.

Fortunately, Jennifer Edwards, the attorney with the Animal Law Center has called Kelley out on his rewriting of history:

"I suppose this is their newest tactic to say, 'This is how has always been.'  If that were the case, we would have never had people denied by Doug Kelley himself to have pit bulls service dogs, we would have never had to get a signed stipulation between our office and the City of Denver protecting our clients in March last year, and we would have never had to file a federal lawsuit."

Oh yeah, all that stuff.

Meanwhile, David Broadwell -- the same guy who declined to comment about who might sue the city after the council declined to pass the exception for service animals -- is now also saying this has always been policy.

"Both before and after the Council discussion in December 2010, our animal control officers have acted in accordance with the new ADA regulations in the actual day-to-day enforcement of the pit bull ordinance even though the ordinance does not expressly recognize this exception.”

Apparently the folks in Denver think a) they can rewrite history and b) that their constituents are too ignorant to notice.  Keep it classy folks.

So if you are in Denver, now is your chance to rewrite the future.

Tomorrow, Denver will be hosting a city-wide election for a new mayor and city council members. Bless the Bullies has some of the candidate's positions here, and one more here, and here's a more detailed spreadsheet with the info from each of the council districts.

If you live in Denver, please make your voice heard. Even if you are not an animal lover, your tax dollars continue to be used to fight off lawsuits to keep a law that is not working and continue to disrupt people's lives. And the council and city leaders continue to perpetuate hysteria in the face of facts, and then are trying to re-write history in order to make themselves look less foolish.

Best of luck to the good candidates in Denver tomorrow.

Aurora repeals ban on 7 breeds, keeps it for 3

No one said logic was rampent in Aurora.

At tonight's city council meeting, the Aurora City Council voted to eliminate the 7 breeds of dogs from the city's breed ban -- but to keep it for American Pit Bull Terriers, American Staffordshire Terriers and Staffordshire Bull Terriers.

People with these breeds as service dogs will be allowed to keep them so the city is in compliance with the ADA.

Councilman Bob Broom claims his decision to keep the ban (but only on three of the 10 breeds) has reduced the number of dog bites and thus, supported keeping the ban.

Broom seems to have ignored all of the statistic actually presented at the city level that clearly show that bites, along with serious bites, have gone up significantly - -here's the packed offered to the city council.

Councilman Bob Fitgerald also thought allowing pit bulls would compromise the safety of citizens -- also ignoring the reality that the actual ban has compromised the safety of citizens (also ignoring the actual numbers).

The Aurora Sentinel has, of course, so far failed to publish these numbers -- for some reason they are either unable to access them via public records request or via the internet - - or just think that Bob Broom's word for it is good enough.

It's not.

Aurora continues to fail. Hey, it's progress getting 7 breeds off the list -- but keeping the 3 continues to show that their decisions are completely based on emotion and fear-mongering, not on logic or their own actual data.

 

Aurora (CO) continues to look at loosening breed restrictions, media perpetuates fuzzy math

On Thursday, Aurora, CO will again discuss loosening the restrictions on their 5 year old breed ban. The city is looking at this after the Department of Justice filed a ruling on the Americans with Disabilities Act on breed bans not being able to limit access to those with service dogs.  This made Aurora's ban in violation of the ADA.  While Denver refused to make the necessary changes to their law, Aurora is looking at loosening their restrictions to become ADA compliant.  

Meanwhile, instead of looking at ways to loosen the restrictions, they should be just looking at a full-on repeal of their law that bans 10 different breeds of dogs.   Unfortunately, the city administration continues to ignore their own numbers and pretend they don't exist -- while the news media allows them to do it.

Last month, City Councilman Bob Broom said that "Statistics show that the number of bites have gone way down," which, well, is wrong. The reality is that they have actually gone up significantly.

In the most recent article, the Denver Post tries to help them defend the breed bans by noting that in 2005, there were 35 dog bites regarding restricted breeds.  In 2010, there were only 6.  These numbers are accurate enough, but ignored that there were 188 bites by non-restricted breeds - -up from 110 in 2005.

Oops.

But then it's become commonplace for city leaders who support breed bans (and it has trickled over to the fear-mongering websites as well) to say that, well, severe bites are down because the restricted breeds bite harder.  Aurora has stated this also.

However, the numbers don't support that either as in 2006, restricted breeds made up 8% of the severe bites, and 10% of the moderate bites and in 2007, when severe bites went up (2 years after the breed ban), they made up 6% of the severe bites and 7% of the moderate ones. So for the first two years of the ban, moderate and severe bites went up -- but not because of the restricted breeds, which were never a high percentage of these bites, but because of the non-restricted breeds.

So the city council continues to try to justify their law -- even to the point of hiding and making up numbers to support themselves.  And even though all of these numbers are available to the public, the mainstream media has yet to pick them up and make them widely available....thus allowing the city to waste taxpayer dollars and give the city free-reign to harrass pet owners and people with service dogs of a particular type.

It's time for the city council to own up to their mistake and fix it...and for the mainstream media to do what they are supposed to do which is hold city officials accountable.

More from Stop BSL who has a great and even deeper breakdown of all the numbers -- including links to the dog bite severity numbers which I hadn't seen before.

 

More problems for Denver and their Breed Ban

Denver has wasted yet more resources enforcing their breed-specific legislation.

A dog named Mufasia escaped from his home in Southwest Denver, and was picked up by animal control. According to Animal Control, Mufasia fit the physical critera for being a pit bull based on the analysis of three separate employees -- and ordered to be killed or removed from the city.

Mufasia's owner protested the breed determination -- and after hearing testimony from outside breed experts, it was determined that Mufasia was in fact, not a pit bull.

The decision again shows the arbitrary nature of Denver's breed ban, their failures in being able to accurately (and definitively) determine breed ID, and the ridiculousness of wasting resources on targeting dogs that, by all reports, showed no signs of aggression. So instead of focusing their limited animal control resources on dogs that had shown themselves to be aggressive, they were focusing city resources on a dog that was not (by all accounts) aggressive, but because it contained a 'look' of a dog they didn't want in their city. 

"Time and time again we have seen that the city relies on poorly trained employees to determine which dogs in their possession are pit bulls," said Animal Law Center attorney Jennifer Edwards. "Their inability to single out pit bulls from out from other breeds has meant a death sentence for thousands of dogs in the years that the city's pit bull has been in place".

Of course, in spite of the ruling, Denver's animal control director Doug Kelley says this proves the process works and is confident in his staff's ability to recognized breeds.

Denver continues to provide evidence of all the reasons why breed bans are a failed initiative.

 

 

Aurora looks to become ADA compliant while city councilman misleads about the stats

Last week, city officials in Aurora, CO announced that they were planning to adjust their breed ban to allow for 'pit bulls' as service dogs in order to become compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act.  While nearby Denver decided a couple of months ago to fight the Department of Justice ruling that forbids breed discrimatory laws from applying to service dogs, Aurora took the opposite path.

"We're not interested in going to war with the Department of Justice" said Mayor Ed Tauer.  Unfortunately he also added "but at the same time, we don't want to completely abandon the law on the books.

However, there does seem to be some discussion about whether or not to get rid of the city's breed ban (which applies to 'pit bulls', American Bulldogs, Canar Dogs, Cane Corsos, Toso Inu, Dogo Argentino, Fila Brassilleiro and Presa Mallorquins) altogether. Councilwoman Renie Peterson would support a behavior-based ordinance, as would Councilwoman Melissa Miller.  However, Mayor Tauer and council members Brad Pierce and Bob FitzGerald appear less willing to make such a change.

Meanwhile, councilman Bob Broom seems perfectly content to make up numbers as he goes along to support keeping the breed ban. "Statistics show that the number of bites have gone way down, and we haven't had any severe incidents with pit bulls since the ordinance has been in place," Broom told the Denver Westwood last week.

Of course, if you look at the actual numbers, Broom appears to be very wrong in his assesment.

Thanks to a kind reader for passing the information along -- here is a copy of the notes that were supplied to the city council for their hearings on the topic.  The notes include a lot of data, information on the restricted breeds, a history of the ordinance and dog bite numbers in the city.

According to the data presented:

2003 -- 213 dog bites, 28 by the nine restricted breeds, 185 by non restricted breeds

2004 - 211 dog bites, 33 by restricted breeds, 178 by non-restricted breeds

2005  -- 137 dog bites, 27 by restricted breeds, 110 by non-restricted breeds

The new breed ban was enacted in January 2006 -- yes, as a way to target 15-20% of the total bites leaving 80% un-impacted.  Also, one other change was to track dog vs dog bites and not just bites on humans. So because of this, the numbers would be expected to go up some in 2006 -- which they did.

2006 - 137 dog bites, 8 by restricted breeds, 129 by non restricted breeds

2007 - 172 dog bites, 15 by restricted breeds, 157 by non-restricted breeds

2008 - 224 dog bites, 8 by restricted breeds, 216 by non-restricted breeds

2009 -- 229 dog bites, 9 by restricted breeds, 220 by non-restricted breeds

2010 - 194 dog bites, 6 by restricted breed, 188 by non-restritced ones.

So even though some increase in 2006 would be expected because of the addition to bites involved dogs onto other dogs, the 67% increase in total dog bites (including a 71% increase from non restrictred breeds) between 2006 and 2009 is 100% a reflection of the ordinance.

That's not a decrease Mr. Broom. Nor is it success.

And to his point about no major attacks by restricted breeds since the ordinance was passed, it's worth noting here that in all of the documentation, there is no mention of their being any attacks by the restricted breeds BEFORE the ordinance was passed - -only "concern" from residents about there being more 'pit bulls' in the city and the city reacting to Denver's breed ban.

Meanwhile, a look at the "operational impacts" of the law, you get a feel for why the bite numbers have been going up, not down.  Beginning in 2005 (when they first started talking about the law), the city has impounded more than 2,000 restricted breeds -- with nearly all of them ending up killed.

The impounding of the restricted breeds has also been a drain on their financial and kennel resources because the restricted breds were taking up kennel space that could have been used to house dogs of other breeds (which, I suppose, were likely also killed or transfered to other shelters to make space for the restricted breeds being held for their court dates) and Veterinary costs were higher due to the number of dogs being impounded.

This is a huge amount of resources (rounding up and killing 2,000+ dogs) when less than 30 of them (about 1.5% if the 2,000 reflects all of the restricted breeds that exist) were involved in any type of dog by incident in the years prior to passing the law.  It should also be worth noting that 7 of the 9 breeds targeted had no record of any bites prior to the ordinance being passed - which would lead one to conclude that the ordinance was passed more out of fear and hysteria than because of any real problems they were trying to solve.  It's simply an amazing number of resources to waste, and a big reason why these diverted resources led to an increase in dog bites from non-targeted breeds.

Amazingly, in spite of this, the "staff" has still recommended that the city keep this ordinance - -which shows a lot more desire to either save face or continue with breed bias (or, as often is the case, the perception of the types of people who they perceive to own the targeted breeds) vs a true desire for public safety. 

But make no mistake, there is nothing in the numbers that indicate that public safety has actually improved and that actually, it's quite the opposite.

There are ten members of the Aurora city council -- hopefully more of them will take a real look at the numbers and realize how ineffective the ordinance has been. Also, it would be hoped that a lot of citizens and dog owners in the community come forward and demand a better use of their tax dollars.

Denver Attny: "Projecting who might sue us is something with some sensitivity around it"

Last night, by a 9-4 vote, the city of Denver elected to make no changes to it's 20 year old breed ban.  Even for Denver, who's council seems to be working very hard to ignore all of the data that has come to light over the past 20 years that indicates that breed bans are not an effective solution, this decision comes as a bit of a surprise.

Back in August, the Department of Justice issued a "final rule" on the Americans with Disabilities Act.  In the final rule, they were extremely clear that according to the ADA, service dogs had to be exempt from city breed bans.

"The Department does not believe that it is either appropriate or consistent with the ADA to defer to local laws that prohibit certain breeds of dogs based on local concerns that these breeds may have a history of unprovoked aggression or attacks. Such deference would have the effect of limiting the rights of persons with disabilities under the ADA...."

However, last night, Denver refused to change its breed ban to allow for service dogs. 

The change will no doubt lead to many more lawsuits against the city -- a city that has already incurred thousands of dollars in outside legal help, had at least one lawsuit settled out of court, and has several others pending.  Meanwhile, the city continues to face a $160 million budget deficit.

Now first off, let me state that the ADA is designed to allow people with disabilities the same rights and access as people without them. And for many, dogs can play a crucial role (for instance, many military veterans are using dogs to help them deal with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder -- which can be debilitating for veterans and part of the reason a staggering 18 veterans a DAY commit suicide).

The Department of Justice's final rule could not be more clear on the issue of service dogs -- and just like other civil rights issues in our nation's history, local officials DO NOT have the ability to trump federal law on these cases.

But Denver thinks they're special, apparently.

Councilman Charlie Brown (he's a clown, that Charlie Brown) urged his colleagues last night to not "roll over and play dead" and to stand up for their pit bull ban.  Brown, and others, have expressed concern that people will try to "game the system" and keep aggressive 'pit bulls' and claim they are service dogs when they are not -- even to the point of being concerned about "paraplegic drug dealers".  Uh huh.

Maybe the best quote of the night comes from Assistant Cit Attorney David Broadwell who declined to comment about the civil liability of the city in defying federal law:

"Projecting who might sue us, or how they might sue us, is something with some sensitivity around it."

In other words, we're going to get sued, it's just commenting about who and how is not a good legal decision - and man, is this going to suck for him. At least one local lawyer has already come forward speculating that there will be many more lawsuits against the city.

The taxpayers in Denver of course are going to have to foot the bill for this -- hopefully the voters of Denver will remove some of these council members from office in order who continue to make costly, irrational fear-based decisions that are costing dogs their lives, and people their civil rights under the ADA.

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 Interestingly, yesterday there was a second story about Denver pets that is in many ways quite related.

Apparently, Denver animal control is concerned about the reality that a huge percentage of pets in Denver are not licensed.  According to their projections, there are roughly 150,000 dogs and 153,000 cats that reside in Denver (these numbers seem about right based on an estimated 239,000 households).  However, in 2009, only 18,892 pets had licenses -- which is roughly 6% of all pets).

Based on their $15 one year licensing fees ($40 for a 3-year license), the city estimates it is losing upwards of $4 million in licensing fees (which may be needed to pay all the new lawsuits) -- and the city is looking for ways to improve licensing.

Here's a hint:  if you want people to license their pets, you must do two things:

1) Offer a service -- Initiatives like offering a "free ride home" to licensed pets provides an insurance policy of sorts for pet owners -- and a service they receive for their payment. Programs like this have worked extremely well in other cities to get people to license their pets -- because they get something in return.  If Fido gets out, he comes home for free. It's a great deal, and a great service.

2) Be trustworthy -- many people don't license their pets because they are afraid that giving their information away will lead to it being used against them by animal control and they will be targeted by animal control for one reason or the other.  As long as you have a city government that is willing to deny people their civil rights of having certain types of service dogs under the ADA, then how are we to assume they will treat pets owned by people NOT under the ADA.  As long as you are out there trying to punish pet owners for owning well-behaved dogs, and as long as the media continues to show pictures of piles of dead dogs that are killed just because of how they look, people will not trust you and will actively not comply.

It's not that hard.  And yet, Denver is oh so far away from this.  It's actually almost amazing that a city that was not all that long ago seen as progressive seems to be so far away from it now.

 

Veterans Day Tribute to Veteran Service Dogs

Time Magazine has an extremely touching video talking about how service dogs are helping many of our nation's veterans cope with post traumatic stress disorder following a return from combat.

The soldiers themselves are telling their stories of how they struggled to deal with family and friends again after serving overseas and how getting a service dog helped them integrate back into life.

According to one spokesperson the video, 18 veterans commit suicide every day in this country -- that's 6,570 suicides a year.

Meanwhile, 4 million animals are killed in shelters each year. They are making attempts to match the dogs to the veterans to end the deaths of both groups.

It is dog's like these in the vidoe (several are 'pit bull type' dogs) that the recent US Department of Justice Ruling on the Americans with Disabilities Act that says service dogs should be exempt from breed-specific laws -- just for people (and dogs) like these. And these are the same people that the city of Denver continues to want to discriminate against by delaying their vote to allow exceptions to their 'pit bull' ban for service dogs. 

Thanks to Time for the touching stories. Thanks to the men and women of our military for their services....and thanks to the dogs for theirs.

Self deception & rationalization in Omaha and Denver

People make decisions. And often they make quick decisions based on somewhat limited information. It's human nature. We cannot possibly research every single element of our lives to the fullest. So we often form opinions quickly.

The danger of this is that it becomes human nature to be more prone to DEFENDING their position on a particular topic than it is to actually CHANGE that opinion based on new data.

And thus is the situation with two communities that are defending their breed-specific policies.

Last night, in Denver, the city council again voted to delay a vote on whether or not to file an exemption of 'pit bull' service dogs from the city's 20 year old breed ban.

The city council has continued to delay a vote on this subject after the Department of Justice offered its final rule this summer on the topic of servcie dogs. In their ruling they said of the ADA:

"The Department does not believe that it is either appropriate or consistent with the ADA to defer to local laws that prohibit certain breeds of dogs based on local concerns that these breeds may have a history of unprovoked aggression or attacks. Such deferences would have the effect of limiting the rights of persons with disabilities...state and local government entities have the ability to determine, on a case-by-case basis, whether a particular animal can be excluded based on that particular animal's actual behavior -- not based on fears or generalizations about how the animal or breed might behave."

While the Department of Justice's ruling could not be more clear that exceptions for service dogs must be made from the city's breed ban -- at least two city council members, Jeanne Faatz and Charlie Brown, wanted to vote down an exemption for service dogs because they viewed the federal regulations as an intrusion on the authority of local governments.  This "intrusion" is exactly why laws like the ADA exist -- to prevent local authorities from targeting individuals and limit their access and opportunities based on a particular disability. 

That fact seems to be lost on Brown, Faatz, and others on the council. 

This delayed decision comes at a time when the city is facing multiple lawsuits for their violation of the ADA....and the taxpayer money continues to fund the city's self rationalization that in spite of all of the science and research that contradicts them,  somehow they are right in their breed ban and everyone else is wrong. 

Meanwhile in Omaha, the city council will tonight look at a change in the city's 2 year old law that would prevent 'pit bulls' (very broadly defined as American Pit Bull Terriers, American Staffordshire Terriers, Staffordshire Bull Terriers, Dogo Argention, Presa Canario, Cane Corso, American Bulldogs or any mix of those breeds) from having to wear a muzzle until they reach 6 months of age.  Currently all of the targeted breeds are required to be leashed, muzzled and harnessed while in public unless the dog passes the Canine Good Citizen Test.

Pam Wiese -- a spokesperson for the Nebraska Humane Society (which owns the animal control contract for the city of Omaha) - said that the required muzzling of pit bull puppies prevented them from socializing normally.  This is obviously one of the major drawbacks of laws that require muzzling -- muzzling and containment laws targeting specific breeds are designed to force isolation (I pointed this out as a problem 2 years ago when this was being discussed).  Forcing isolation, and thus, causing lack of socialization, is a recipe for creating a whole mess of under-socialized dogs. This is especially true for puppies, so fortunately the council looks willing to make this change, but is very important for dogs of all ages. It would be great if the Nebraska Humane Society -- and the Omaha city council - would recognize the importance of socialization for targeted dogs of all ages.  However, once the city has said "This is a good idea" it seems like they are unwilling to look at the reality that the whole law was a knee-jerk reaction that was based on a faulty premise in the first place.

Meanwhile, also of interest, the council is looking at decreasing the fines for at-large dogs -- decreasing the fines for unaltered dogs from $300 to $100 on the first offense and from $600 to $300 on the 2nd.  They realized the high fees were preventing anyone from picking up their animals at the shelter and NHS has noted that since the law passed they have seen a significant increase in the number of impounded animals left at the Humane Society (which generally translates to higher kill rates, although NHS does not make those numbers available to the public).

Meanwhile, Weise says the rest of the 2008 ordinance is "working well" -- although I guess actually decreasing dog bites isn't a requirement for "working" as bites in Omaha have gone up since the ordinance was put into effect after 3 years of declines prior to the ordinance passing.  "Working" is apparently a very relative term.

Denver and their taxpayers stay losing

The city of Denver has lost in court, again.

The great folks over at the Game Dog Guardian (who are having quite a week this week) are reporting that Denver has once again lost in the courts regarding their breed ban.

This time, Denver's motion to dismiss a court case because they are claiming that there were no material facts regarding whether their breed ban was rationally related to a legitimate government purpose.

The courts denied their request. 

Even more interesting about the court's decision is that the city's 'expert' witness cited two different studies to substantiate his position that pit bulls are more likely to bite than other types of dogs. However, one of the studies is the 2000 report by the Center for Disease Control.  However, one of the writers of the CDC report, Randall Lockwood, has testified that the city's expert has 'misused' the study and noted that the information in the report cannot be used to determine that certain types of dogs are dangerous.

So the city of Denver must continue paying legal fees to defend their ordinance in court.  This of course is in addition to a legal settlement they paid back in March, and 2 other pending lawsuits regarding violation of the ADA Guidelines on people who have 'pit bulls' as service dogs.

The city continues to pay for lawsuits regarding the city's breed ban -- and continue to try to find reasons to try to avoid following the ADA guidelines - -all at the increasingly high cost of the city's taxpayers.  Maybe the city could use some of the money paying out their defense of this law to try to cover their $160 million budget shortfall. 

The city continues to flail about in support of their breed ban. It seems as if there are quite a few politicians (and a city attorney) in the area that have based a lot of their political career on the hysteria about pit bulls that seem to be willing to pay whatever tax dollars are necessary to defend the ban - -in spite of the mounting costs and evidence that they are wrong. 

There is more in the judge's decision -- and you can catch it all over at the Game Dog Guardian.   But none of it bodes well for the city of Denver -- and the taxpayers who are paying for it.

Yes Denver, non-discrimination laws apply to you too

On Monday, the Denver city council delayed a vote that would have created exemptions for the city's 'pit bull' ban that would allow the use of 'pit bulls' as service dogs in the city.

Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz, who has repeatedly used leadingly-worded survey results to justify her position against 'pit bulls', proposed to send the revised ordinance back to committee and the council voted 10-0 to do so.

Keep in mind, there is no wiggle room for the Denver Council.  Meanwhile, the Denver Post is trying to defend the city's right to discriminate against 'pit bulls' as service dogs.

It doesn't work that way.

See, the American's with Disabilities Act was created to specifically prohibit discrimination based on a disability. And The Department of Justice couldn't be more clear that service dogs are protected under the ADA (more on that in a bit). So no Denver, you are not exempted from being non-discriminatory any more than people in the deep south were exempted from discrimination based on race following the civil rights movement in the 60s.

The laws apply to you too.

And Denver's law is clearly in violation of the Department of Justice's official new final rule.

"The Department does not believe that it is either appropriate or consistent with the ADA to defer to local laws that prohibit certain breeds of dogs based on local concerns that these breeds may have a history of unprovoked aggression or attacks. Such deference would have  the effect of limiting the rights of persons with disabilities."

That seems pretty clear.  And the DOJ was very clear that service dogs were not without their restrictions:

"State and local government entities have the ability to determine, on a case-by-case basis, whether a particular service animal can be excluded based on that particular animal's actual behavior -- not based on fears or generalizations about how an animal or breed might behave."

So the reality is, if a dog is ill-tempered and a problem, Denver can still have all the ability in the world to put restricitons on a dog.  So if the dog is a problem, they have an out. So what is the issue if the dog isn't a problem?

Fear based hysteria -- created by the media in the city, continued by the media, reinforced by politicians to the point of even creating fear of 'pit bulls' being used by paraplegic drug dealers (no joke).

So as the city of Denver continues to face endless litigation -- costing the city tens of thousands of dollars - the city stubbornly refuses to let go of an idea of canine discrimination that was always based on fear-mongering, never based in science, and has never proven itself to improve the overall safety of the residents in the city.

Denver is flailing at trying to justify themselves....

For more, see Change.org -- where there is also a petition to encourage the Post to issue an appology for encouraging discrimination against 'pit bull' service dogs.