The Huntington Beach City Council is poised tonight to pass an ordinance that would outlaw pet stores that get dogs and cats from commercial breeders.
The so-called “puppy mill” ban, which was approved on first reading two weeks ago, is scheduled to go before the council meeting at 6 tonight.
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Surf City is following in the paws of other Orange County cities that have enacted similar bans. And, as was the case in those towns, local pet shop owners are crying fowl, er, foul, saying that cutting off the supply from breeders will put them out of business.
Animal rights activists and others watching Orange County cities dealing with hundreds of thousands of unwanted pets agree the time has come to shift to market to a mode that favors shelter adoptions.
Besides, ban boosters say, pet store can still rake in money selling pet food and accessories.
Call it ruff trade.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.