HUNTINGTON BEACH – Animal activists, concerned residents and city officials alike backed a councilman’s push to ban the commercial sale of cats and dogs in the city.

Councilman Joe Carchio asked for the council’s support to direct staff to draw up what he called the “animal protection ordinance,” which would ban the sale of cats and dogs in city pet stores.

Huntington Beach touts itself as an “animal-friendly city” that is home to an award-winning dog beach, but allows commercial retailers to sell domestic animals that may have come from puppy mills, Carchio said.

“If we have the ability to make something right when we know it’s wrong, we should do that,” he said.

His item passed with Mayor Don Hansen and Mayor Pro Tem Devin Dwyer dissenting.

Dwyer said he wanted the option to allow a permitting process for pet stores that buy puppies from reputable breeders but he did not gain the support of the majority of the council.

He also said he wanted the business owners who would be affected involved in the process.

Huntington Beach is the fourth Orange County city to take up a discussion on the possible ban in recent months. Laguna Beach and Dana Point are considering the possibility as a preventive action; neither city has retailers that sell pets. Irvine City Council members passed a ban in October.

More than a dozen members of various animal protection agencies and some concerned residents appealed to the council saying they believed most pet stores purchased their dogs from puppy mills or other mass-produced-animal facilities.

“These mills supply nearly 100 percent of the pet stores around the country,” said Elizabeth Oreck, of Best Friends Animal Society . “Maximum production takes priority over the welfare of the animals.”

Eliana Sinkey, who described herself as someone who likes to keep tabs on pet stores in Orange County, says she has seen first-hand the negative affect on pet store animals.

“Those little dogs and those little cats, they don’t have a voice. They don’t have anybody,” she told the council. “I’m begging you, pass this law.”

Carchio said the ordinance would affect two stores in the city: Pets, Pets, Pets in Five Points Plaza and Animal Kingdom at Warner Avenue and Goldenwest Street.

Calls to the pet store owners or managers were not returned and it is not known where these stores get their animals.

Pets, Pets, Pets is a family-run store that is very active in the Huntington Beach community. Councilman Keith Bohr said he was told it purchased its puppies from a reputable source.

Pet stores that get their animals from puppy mills or other inhumane facilities have been controversial for several years as federal regulators have uncovered the poor conditions in which many of these animals are kept.

Often the animals are scrunched in cages that are not cleaned. The animals are not walked or let out and are often left to live in puddles of their own feces and urine.

Bohr said 1,282 cats and dogs are collected by Orange County Animal Care Services from Huntington Beach every year. Of those, 635 are euthanized.

Countywide, OC Animal Care Services sees more than 30,000 dogs and cats come to its facility and more than 15,000 euthanized, he said.

At one point in the meeting, some of the council members pulled up photos of their dogs on their iPads and cell phones and showed them to the audience, where supporters of the ordinance waited for the council’s decision. There was applause when the council voted to support the ban.

“When the taxpayers have to bear the burden for the large amount of animals in our shelters that are unwanted and they’re discarded … I have to say that I’m going to have to support this,” Councilman Joe Shaw said. “Huntington Beach is a good place for animals and I think we can make it an even better place for animals.”

Contact the writer: 714-796-7953 or jfletcher@ocregister.com

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