Like many communities in Ohio, Orrville had a long-standing breed-specific law targeting pit bulls in their community that was modeled after the state law.
A year ago, the state of Ohio passed HB 14 into law, and repealed the state-wide prohibitions on pit bulls.
Since that time, nearly a dozen communities in Ohio have removed their local pit bull legislation, including Lebanon, Strongville, Geneva on the Lake, North Royalton, Painsville, Shreve, Bay Village, Avon Lake, and Cincinnati. Other cities, like Cleveland and Toledo repealed theirs prior to the change in the state law.
Now, Orrville has joined the ranks (thanks to Stop BSL for the hat tip).
Logic, common sense, and expert testimony are clearly beginning to win out over hysteria and nonsense in the talk about dangerous dog laws, and communities are overwhelmingly choosing to go with breed-neutral, behavior-based laws instead of breed-specific ones.
Congrats to the community of Orrville.
For those who do not believe there is a WAR on Dogs going on in America, I was commenting on a article recently and "those that will not be named" from "the" BSL Lobby Group were also commenting. One basically said breed bans were sweeping the county and would be in every city and small town in the US. I looked at a BSL tracker report and while probably not totally up to date, it showed since 2009; 109 places rejected BSL, 84 put in BSL and 26 REPEALED BSL. The GOOD guys ARE winning.
Posted by: Fran C. | February 18, 2013 at 01:03 PM
You can add Archbold, OH to this list. Last week the Archbold Council chose eliminate the special registration and insurance requirements on Pit bulls,reported in the Archbold Buckeye 2/20/13.
I see this as a huge success, since the dog warden has met with every city in the county to recommend keeping their home rule community legislation.
Posted by: Tasha | February 25, 2013 at 09:14 AM
Thanks Tasha for the update. Definitely even more great news!
Posted by: Brent | February 25, 2013 at 03:46 PM