Palm Beach County commissioners set new rules Tuesday that animal control managers say will help staunch the flow from so-called “puppy mills” — even as the commission, animal rights groups, and pet stores agreed there were parts of the new rules each didn’t like.
Starting Saturday, the county will no longer issue permits for new pet stores to offer dogs or cats other than rescue animals. That means only currently permitted stores will legally be able to sell dogs and cats from breeders.
After more than two hours of discussion Tuesday, the commission stuck with its Sept. 13 stance to “grandfather” in pet stores with permits granted before Saturday to sell dogs and cats, provided they do so from licensed breeders who comply with U.S. Department of Agriculture rules.
Other stores still can sell other animals and supplies. They also can allocate space to adopt out rescue animals in collaboration with nonprofit shelters or rescues, with the adoption fee going back to the shelter.
Also, the county said shops selling dogs and cats cannot do business with breeders whom the USDA has hit with a combination of major or minor violations within three years.
An owner can hand down that valuable permit if he or she sells the shop, so long as the county concludes the sale was “arm’s length” and wasn’t done as a shell game to hide violations.
Commissioners tentatively approved a first version of the rules on Sept. 13, but added a proviso Tuesday that would allow the county to yank permits for shops hit with two major health or safety violations in five years.
Commissioners also moved the law’s effective date from Nov. 1 to Saturday to reduce the number of stores trying to get a permit before the deadline.
Commissioner Melissa McKinlay had said Sept. 13 that she worried entrepreneurs would rush to set up a pet store and qualify for the grandfather clause.
Animal Care and Control Director Dianne Sauve said after the meeting Tuesday that four companies called last week, requesting permits to sell dogs and cats. She said two of the requests were granted, bringing the number of permitted stores in the county to nine.
One of the two was Wags to Riches, which was moving to the Boca Raton area because Delray Beach had outlawed the sale of dogs and cats from breeders at any pet store in the city. The other is a new store, Pet Medical Center of Boca Raton, in suburban Boca Raton.
Tuesday’s vote was 6-0. Commissioner Priscilla Taylor was absent for that part of the meeting.
“I would prefer eliminating grandfather clauses and shutting down these (puppy mill) operations,” McKinlay said, “but I’m smart enough to count (colleagues’) votes.”
The new rules are fair “toward the dog merchants, the rescues, and most of all the animals, if our pet shops comply with the requirements, and if we carefully monitor compliance,” said Joann Woodruff, a Florida State Council member of the Humane Society of the United States.
High-profile lobbyist Ron Book, who represents five of the “grandfathered” stores, said he worked with county staff on the compromise, which he said will let stores continue to operate while protecting both pets and customers.
Pet store owners also have chafed at humane societies, private shelters and rescue groups. These owners say the shelter groups have at times shown hypocrisy by buying dogs and cats from “mills” and selling them at high prices.
The county’s new rules also crack down on such outfits. who will have to keep records for two years and send monthly reports of inventory, adoptions and euthanizations.
“There’s great debate about whether animals should come into Palm Beach County when animals are dying every day in our shelters,” Sauve told commissioners. “We do view rescues as our allies. That said, that does not mean that they should not be held accountable for what animals are coming in; for the origins of puppies that are coming in.”
ALSO TUESDAY
The Palm Beach County Commission did the following:
Child Care: Approved new guidelines for the county’s hundreds of child care centers.
Incentives: Approved $357,000 in incentives to “Project Emblem,” now revealed as Cancer Treatment Centers of America, for its corporate headquarters in Boca Raton; and approved offering $89,000, as part of a state match, to “Project Cranium,” an as-yet undisclosed company wanting to move its regional headquarters to the county.
Vehicles for Hire:Gave final approval, on the second of two votes,new “reciprocity” rulesfor taxis, limos, and app-based rides such as Uber and Lyft, for five southeast Florida counties.
LaRocque: Saluted Assistant County Administrator Shannon LaRocque, who is leaving to become director of utilities in Wellington.
