Courtesy iStockphoto / Thinkstock
Urban poulet steward across the land present penalty for not complying with confusing city ordinances .
It ’s not surprising that urban chicken possessor have been the first to run precipitately into city laws and ordinance that not only throttle or prohibit keeping hens , but also serve up powerful fines for doing so . While animal control ordinance violation broadly speaking carry reasonable fines , zoning ordinances and misdemeanor law-breaking penalty are more strict . enceinte fine and even gaol time can be levied on homeowners if keeping chickens runs afowl of city codes . While most urban Gallus gallus keepers are eager to comply with local laws andwork with metropolis officials , misinformation , out-of-date city documents and websites , and conflicting ordinances can land the homeowner in hot weewee .
Chicken Charges: Great Falls, Mont.
Charles Bocock and his married woman , Cheryl Reichert , of Great Falls , Mont. , have long been participant in sustainable living . Their abode boasts solar panels , a hybrid car and constitutive gardens . Bocock , a lord gardener , wanted chicken droppings for his compost heap .
“ I knew that chicken manure would really keep my compost pile go , ” he says . “ My married woman loved the eggs and enjoyed keeping the hens . It was a winnings - win for us . ”
The couple visited city hall and receive a written matter of an regulation that vaguely restricted livestock animals but were reassure by the city staff that poulet were not part of that restriction . After receiving verbal approving from their region association , they started their flock of six Welsummer chick . Bocock make a hencoop under the deck behind a 6 - foot secrecy fence where the hens live for nearly two years .
In late 2009 , Bocock and Reichert obtain composition from a city actor requiring them to get free of their hens or look a misdemeanor charge with penalty amercement of up to $ 500 and/or six months in slammer per crybaby per day they kept them after a two - workweek saving grace period . They were told the city lawyer translate “ livestock ” in the city ordinance code to includechickens .
“ That ’s three years per day ! ” says Bocock . “ That ’s more than most manslayer get . ”
Mixed Messages: John’s Creek, Ga.
Martha Mellon and her three boy ascertain themselves in a similar billet in John ’s Creek , Ga. Mellon had researched her city ’s animal - control ordinances before she purchased 12 hens for her 1 - acre suburban great deal . Hoping to furnish healthy eggs for her children and neighbors , she was pleased to learn that chickens were sound in John ’s Creek .
An animal - control ordinance specified the coop be placed at least 100 foot from any nearest neighbour , so she built an elaborate chicken coop with a cover test 117 feet from her nearest neighbor .
“ I used to set lawn president down there by the coop , ” Mellon says . “ I used to get up before sunup and sit down there with my coffee and watch them recognize the twenty-four hours . ”
From January through July 2009 , she maintain the pullet without incident . Then , to her surprise , like Bocock and Reichert , was informed by a city zoning officer that she was in violation of a zoning ordination . Though she was stick to the animal - control ordinance , she learned there was also a zoning ordinance that stated volaille coops must be at least 200 foot by from the nearest neighbor .
When Mellon inquired about the run afoul animal - control ordinance the zone officer say that he was only enforcing the zone ordinance . It turn out that John ’s Creek had two law with unlike fix - back essential for chicken coops . Zoning infringement expect a $ 500 fine and/or six month in jail .
What’s a Jail Bird to Do?
Bocock and Reichert quickly loaned their smuggled hen to a farm - owning friend , but they have conduct stairs to educate their residential district and work on with the city to change the animal - control regulation . They joined with neighbor to createCitizens for Legalizing Urban Chickens , gathered C of signatures and spent time verbalise with metropolis commissioners . Working with the urban center provision director , Michael Haynes , CLUC assist develop a conscription hen ordinance free-base on ordinances in neighboring communities .
“ We decided we wanted to do this the right way and interchange the Pentateuch , ” Bocock read .
Mellon believed that having two infringe ordinances was big insurance policy and that the animal - command ordinance should take anteriority . She ensure an attorney and have the urban center of John ’s Creek to court of law .
However , the monetary value of continued litigation and the scourge of clink prison term was more than Mellon was quick to take on with her three children . In the ending , she relocate her hens and settle the case with the city in central for the city dropping the zoning citation .
Is State Control the Answer?
As city after city rehashes survive laws and constructs new urban - farming laws , some people believe that states should forestall local governments from regulate family solid food production . Georgia State Rep. Bobby Franklin , R-43 , proposed the Georgia Right to develop Act to the current Georgia universal forum to do just that . The bill ’s purpose is :
to preempt sure local ordinances come to to production of farming or farm product ; to protect the right to grow food crops and raise small animals on individual property so long as such crops and animals are used for human consumption by the occupier , gardeners or raiser and their households and not for commercial role .
A similar bill ( H.B. 842 ) was introduced last session but not fleet . Mellon told her story to the subcommittee coming together on the bill last yr .
The matter of the rightfield to turn your own food is so compelling that many average citizens in Georgia registered themselves as lobbyists to help convince legislator to vote for H.B. 842 . One such person , Rob Miller , pay up for his own lobbying privileges and spent the integral 40 - day legislative school term in Atlanta lobby on personal liberties issues .
“ We keep on trying to instruct as many people as we can , ” Miller says . “ People should be able to be as ego - sufficient as they can be . ”
While city across the nation are worm with their citizen overurban volaille keeping , folks like Mellon , Bocock and Reichert are doing without their hens because they fear respectable fines and jail time for practice their ego - sustaining life-style .
