The county Board of Supervisors gave the initial nod Tuesday to essentially creating a Megan's Law-type list for vicious dogs.
Megan's Law provided the online database for registered sex offenders. So just think of the new proposed site like that. Only with dangerous pooches.
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The supervisors voted 4-0 to tentatively approve changes to the county's ordinance regulating vicious dogs to allow for the database. A final vote is scheduled for Oct. 1.
An animal control hearing would be held to determine if a dog is vicious and belongs on the website. But if the owner disagrees with the ruling, an appeal could be filed in Orange County Superior Court and the dog would not be listed as dangerous until the appeal was decided.
The board is also considering allowing owners to get their dogs out of lockup pending the animal control hearing, which has the added benefit of reducing government costs for care.
Informed by the complaints out of Trabuco Canyon about a pit bull owner who allegedly used his pet to intimidate neighbors, the board last summer adopted an ordinance that forbids owners of such beasts from getting any more dogs.
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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.