Mike Wolanin | The Republic Diane Burchett mops around pet carriers and cages full of cats in the special care area at Columbus Animal Care Services on Dec. 28, 2023, as the shelter overflows with cats.
We hate to sound like a broken record, but Indiana cities and towns are not being served by representatives and senators in the Indiana General Assembly.
The latest example is an effort at the Statehouse to invalidate local ordinances — including one in Columbus — that bar pet shops from selling live dogs and cats unless they come from shelters.
Columbus and at least 20 other Indiana cities and towns — including Indianapolis, Carmel and Crown Point — have passed such local ordinances because abandoned animals had overwhelmed local shelters or disreputable breeders or puppy mills had become a local nuisance. Local is the key here.
Last year, lawmakers had people howling when they tried to restrict these local controls. The public made so much noise about this that the supermajority Republicans who control every lever of power in Indianapolis backed down.
We’re sad but not surprised to report there is little evidence some lawmakers have the capacity to listen. In fact, they are trying to do even worse this year in the form of House Bill 1412, authored by Rep. Beau Baird, R-Greencastle. It passed the House agriculture committee Monday on a 9-4 party line vote, with Republicans sending it to the full House.
“Tensions flared … as lawmakers revived — and advanced — a bill to block cities and towns from banning the retail sale of dogs,” Indiana Capital Chronicle reported. “It was a win for puppy breeders and a national pet store chain (Petland) but went against the wishes of animal welfare advocates and numerous local officials.
“Evoking last year’s bill, Baird’s measure would not allow cities and towns to ban the retail sale of pets, effective July 1, 2024. Unlike the 2023 proposal, House Bill 1412 does not grandfather bans adopted earlier …”
In other words, your state legislature wants to tell Columbus and other Indiana municipalities that we have no say in a distinctly local issue, even if we have already acted.
Baird and others supporting this bill have a short memory. Last year, bipartisan Columbus officials including City Councilman Tom Dell, D-at large, and Rep. Ryan Lauer, R-Columbus, went to the Statehouse to oppose a slightly less obnoxious attempted imposition on local control.
Dell told lawmakers then, “If you want to have standards (on animal breeders) without taking away the local control, I don’t have a problem with that. … But you take away the local control, you’re going to have a lot of people like myself, council members from all over the state, coming up here and beating on your doors, going ‘What are you people doing to us?’”
And Lauer last year testified he’s “generally skeptical of a one-size-fits-all attempt from the state level to come across a solution that may not fit every community. … I think communities can, should be able to make their own local decisions about it.”
Even after Columbus passed a measure limiting pet sales, animal shelters still are often overflowing with abandoned cats and dogs. As a service to the community, The Republic each Saturday publishes a “Pet Shop” feature in which Columbus Animal Care Services and the Bartholomew County Humane Society profile adoptable dogs and cats. We’re proud to provide this community service, which also conveys the importance of spaying and neutering pets.
We also do this because we recognize there is a local need, and we want to try to help. Likewise, some Columbus pet shops offer dogs and cats for sale in harmony with the local ordinance. They also recognize there is a local need, and they also want to try to help.
Baird and others who support this misguided attack on local cities and towns ought to do the same.
