Tuesday, August 25, 2015
By ROBERT CONNELLY
CANFIELD
After city officials enforced a ban on pit bulls, they now will revisit the legislation after area activists pointed out the ordinance is in violation of state law.
Canfield enacted its dog ordinance in 2010, in which vicious dogs were identified as “one that has inflicted severe injury without provocation, has been trained for dog fighting, is a dog commonly defined as a pit bull or has been used in the commission of a crime.”
That is in direct violation of legislation signed by Republican Gov. John Kasich in 2012, which removed pit bulls from the vicious list at birth. Now the vicious list is for dogs that have inflicted severe injury without provocation.
“My understanding is that I was going to talk to council at the next meeting [Sept. 9] about addressing this issue and see what they wanted to do,” said city attorney Mark Fortunato. “If [council] wants to redraft the ordinance to make it similar to the state code, that’s what they will do.”
He further said: “I think it’s time for council to reconsider that, and that’s what they indicated they wanted to do.”
The pit bull breed is the Staffordshire bull terrier or American Staffordshire terrier.
“I think that’s great, if it really does lead to that change, because my family would be at a different place right now – because we would have the dog we wanted,” said Mark Harman of Canfield. His family returned Lola, a dog the family adopted but returned because the Canfield Police Department was alerted to their dog.
According to the Canfield police report, a city resident was concerned about a pit bull on High Street and spoke to authorities Aug. 14. Lola is part pit bull.
“We were very surprised. The first we heard about [Canfield’s ban] was when the police were at our door,” Harman recalled. “We didn’t want to cause any trouble so we took her back that night.”
The police report said that was the night of Aug. 15, and Canfield police confirmed the dog was returned Aug. 19.
Harman said his 6-year-old son was disappointed but understood why the dog had to be taken back.
“I would have been fine if the reason she was taken was because she did something to harm something,” he said. “Just having that type of dog is completely unfair. That can happen with any dog, and it really depends on the owner.”
Police Chief Chuck Colucci said there was a family from out of state who moved into the city in 2009 and ran a “criminal enterprise” out of two rental properties. “Their rental-property defense was a massive pit bull that was chained to the bumper of a car,” he said. That family then moved out of Canfield, and the city adopted its breed-specific legislation in 2010.
“We’re not driving around looking for pit bulls – and no residents had pit bulls,” he said. “We get very few calls and very few problems with dogs in general, and by far we have more ‘barking dog’ complaints than complaints against dogs that are accused of being vicious.”
Colucci said he supports city council’s changing its ordinance to be in line with state law.
Animal activists said there are similar ordinances in Girard and Youngstown. Local activist Jason Cooke of the Ohioans Against Breed Discrimination, along with Steffen Baldwin, chief executive officer of the Animal Cruelty Task Force of Ohio and a co-founder of Ohioans Against Breed Discrimination, will address the Sept. 16 Youngstown City Council meeting with the hope that the city changes its pit bull ban.
“I applaud them and I commend them for it,” Cooke said of Canfield’s wanting to change its ordinance.
Mary Louk is board president of Animal Charity Humane Society in Youngstown, and her group was involved with Harman’s case. She said Lola has been placed in another home and that family is working to adopt her.
“My biggest thing is that Canfield’s been very responsive and was told that this was something that they had actually looked at removing awhile ago ... it kind of got pushed off to the side and tabled for awhile, but as soon as it was brought up to them they were very responsive,” she said. “That’s a big plus for a community to respond like that.”
Atty. DanaMarie Pannella, based in Medina, said each city or home-rule township that has an ordinance “on its own may have a constitutionality issue.” She asked: “If a dog is taken away, is there a hearing [due process] since property was taken away?” She along with Cooke and Baldwin pointed to the 14th Amendment in that case.
All three also said that these breed-specific ordinances would need police officers to visually identify a dog as a pit bull. Baldwin said intermixing among dog breeds in recent years has led to less-pure breeds, and most people associate pit bulls with dogs that have box-shaped heads.
Cooke is hoping that by approaching Youngstown, which he said does not enforce its ordinance, could create a ripple effect that would lead other smaller communities in Mahoning County to change their breed-specific legislation.
He said years ago the fears of pit bull breeds were centered on other breeds, such as Dobermans or huskies.
“Why go after the neighbor’s dog that may be a pit bull breed that’s done nothing wrong? It doesn’t make sense to us as Ohioans,” Cooke said. All three also want any new ordinances to have harsher penalties for irresponsible owners.
Colucci said he fully supports tougher penalties against irresponsible dog owners. “If you want to have a pet, it’s your responsibility,” he said.