KC DOG BLOG

Cincinnati Repeals Breed Ban

Today, the Cincinnati  (OH) City  Council voted 8-1 to officially repeal th city's breed ban.  The current ban has been on the books since 2003, and has caused a multitude of problems, including spending thousands of dollars on prosecuting ban violators and having to use valuable police officer presence to enforce the ban.

Cincinnati has joined the entire state of Ohio, and become the 3rd of the 4 largest cities (Cleveland and Toledo were the others) in the state that repealed their breed bans within the past 2 years.

This is yet another step that shows how cities and communities continue to listen to the experts in animal handling in their communities in forming their animal welfare policies - -and these experts nearly unanimously oppose breed-specific laws.

Congrats to the great folks in Cincinnati for making this happen and for the wisdom of the council for moving forward without the breed ban.

Good news. And a good sign that public opinion is really changing and focusing on proper dog ownership, and animal behavior, and not a dog's looks, as a means for determining dangerous dogs. Hooray.

Cincinnati takes steps to repeal Breed Ban

Today, a Cincinnati Council committee voted 5-1 to repeal the city's breed ban making pit bulls illegal in the city.

The city is considering changing the law after HB 14 was inacted to repeal the state wide breed-specific legislation. Councilman Chris Seelbach, who was elected in December 2011, proposed the ordinance change says he has never supported the city's breed ban. "I've always believed that entire breeds should not be punished -- we need to punish bad owners."  The ordinance is supported by Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls who notes that vicious dogs are not breed-specific.

Councilman Cecil Thomas was the lone dissenting vote. He said he was concerned about enforcement issues surrounding a breed neutral ordinance (more similar to the state law) vs the city's current breed ban.

Apparently Thomas has been numb to the progression of the Cincinnati ordinance. Because of the law, the city 'euthanized" over 1000 pit bulls in 2007, and spent more than $86,000 prosecuting the 50 'pit bulls' taken from people's homes for being there illegally.  In June, 2008, the city passed another ordinance that began training police officers to identify illegal pit bulls because animal control was unable to handle all of the enforcement issues.  And then, in 2009, the city passed a law that made it illegal to bred and sell pit bulls -- even though it was already illegal to own or possess them.

So enforcing the current law hasn't been exactly a dream come true.

The motion will now go before the entire council for adoption this week - -making Cincinnati primed to join Cleveland and Toledo as major metropolitan cities in Ohio that repealed their breed specific laws and the state of Ohio itself, which no longer has a breed-specific law.

Great job by Councilman Seelbach and Vice Mayor Qualls (and others) who have supported this repeal - and to the many in the Cincinnati area who have worked hard to make this happen. Awesome job folks.

Cincinnati -- a lesson in failure

It's tough to not laugh at Cincinnati at this point.  It's almost as if they're rats in the maze that keep pushing the same buzzer over and over hoping this is the time it doesn't shock them.  I don't know how else to explain it.

For starters, Cincinnati is under Ohio's state law sets restrictions on 'pit bulls' (insurance requirements, containment and leash requirement). In 2003, they decided that law wasn't working, so the city decided to institute an all-out ban on 'pit bulls'.  That too proved to be a failure.

In 2007, the city continued to euthanize over 1000 pit bulls a year, the number of "German Shepherds in the shelter started to grow, and the city estimated that it spend more than $86,000 prosecuting the 50 'pit bulls' that were taken from homes for being illegal.

So, the city decided to up the anty, and in spite of having one of the highest murder rates per capita in the country, in June of 2008, the city passed an ordinance that began training police officers to identify pit bulls so the police force could help enforce the ordinance.

So what do you do when that doesn't work? 

Jim McNulty, the president of the Westwood Civic Association said it's common for pit bulls to still live in his neighborhood and pleaded with the council to do something about it.  The Cincinnati SPCA says that over 1,000 'pit bulls' show up at the shelter still every year (although, it should be noted that the SPCA folks aren't very good at breed identification as they are currently facing a lawsuit for killing a woman's American Bulldog that was mistaken for a 'pit bull")

So, Cincinnati created more laws.

So this week, Cincinnati passed a law that not only can people not own pit bulls, but now it will be illegal to breed them, sell them, or give them away too.

Huh?

If it's illegal to own one? Then wouldn't it already be illegal to breed or sell one? 

So now, if someone is caught owning, keeping, breeding, selling or transfering owenrship of a pit bull in any way, they will face up to six months in jail. That's six months in jail for owning a dog.

Let's put this in perspective. Cincinnati is a crime-ridden city. Their murder rate is 4x the national average. Forcible rape? 3x the national average. Robbery? 4x. Burglary? 2x. Larceny? 2x.  Car Theft? 1.5x.  All of this helped get Cincinnati rates as the 16th most dangerous city in the US with a population over 75,000.

And we're going to put people in jail because they own a certain type of dog, that may or may not be dangerous, that may or may not even be a pit bull. Are we going to take Paulette Evans' dog, kill it and throw her in jail too? 

That's not how I'd prefer to use the jail space in Cincinnati if I lived there.

It is sort of entertaining to watch the city council in Cincinnati try to make their breed specific laws work. They're now on version 4.0 of this ordinance because they can't get it to work. Maybe, at some point they're realize the law isn't not working because it isn't harsh enough -- maybe eventually they'll figure out it isn't working because it is an unenforceable law based on a failed premise.

You can't tell a vicious dog by its shape.And even if certain breeds were more aggressive, the ability to tell different breeds apart, particularly with mixed breeds, is virtually impossible and will lead to lawsuits.  Dangerous dogs are not a problem -- but a symptom of a much larger societal problem that remains a problem within Cincinnati. It isn't the problem itself. 

And tweaking a failed law with a failed premise isn't going to fix it.