im in for a fight .....I LOST!!!!

[Sonoran Silkies]

Call AND write the city (send your letter certified so that there is a record of it having been sent and received) asking them to provide you with the specific reference in city code/ordinances that they say you are violating. You may have to go down to city hall to read the ordinances if they are not available online. Note, you are not asking them if keeping chickens is legal or illegal, you are asking them to cite the code or ordinance that would render chickens as illegal. If they cannot give you a specific ordinance, then you need to tell them that due process requires that laws be properly enacted--that you cannot break a law that does not legally exist.

Tell them that until you have read the law yourself and verified that chickens are disallowed, you will be keeping your birds. Then post No Trespassing signs on your property and on your coop. Securely lock the gates/doors, or better yet, move the birds into your house or garage where they can be secured from seizure; where a judicially issued warrant would unequivocably be required.

 

[theFox]

That Halifax County ordinance provides the requirements for operating an Intensive operation and since a single chicken is 0.03 animal units it would take a very large number of them for you to be governed by it. So the local jurisdiction ordinance (if there is actually any) is going to govern.

Those folks however need to provide you with a detailed description of what code sections were actually violated by you (if any), and if it was me, I'd talk to a lawyer about the possibility of an injunction to prevent seizure.

 

[onecent]

Ok, here is the ordinance they sent me


§ 91.11 KEEPING OF CERTAIN ANIMALS REGULATED.



It shall be unlawful for any person to keep, maintain, house or allow upon his premises, whether such premises be owned outright by such person or leased from another, within the corporate limits, cows, horses, mules, chickens, bees or other non-domesticated animals, unless activity was in operation or existing prior to 1975.



Mayor Emery Doughtie – 533-5912 (w)

Mayor Pro Tem Ferebee – 535-8147 (w)

Councilman Lawson – 535-2300 (h)

Councilman Liverman – 537-9730 (h)

Councilman Bobbitt – 537-5818 (h)

Councilwoman Scarbrough – 537-6820 (h)



Lisa B. Vincent, CMC, City Clerk
City of Roanoke Rapids

P. O. Box 38

Roanoke Rapids, N. C. 27870

 

[theFox]

Well it sure seems to me that you are in fact in violation of the governing law if you weren't keeping chickens on that property in 1975 or if the activity did not take place on that lot prior to 1975.

Maybe an out would be to see if there were chickens on your property prior to 1975. Seems like a poorly worded regulation to me.

Everyone in that place you live in is technically in violation of that regulation and in order to properly enforce it the corporation would run afoul of both the state and federal laws.

 

[onthespot]

As IF!!!

Beeez..... I'm so sure!!! You could sue them for violating your civil rights by unequal enforcement of the law. According to that law no bees can be allowed in the city. I suppose by having a flower you are feeding and "harboring" it and I would strive to have that law thrown out on the grounds that NO PERSON can possibly comply with it EVER. That includes every animal control officer, judge, law enforcement officer, clerk, mayor, EVERYBODY in the city has been criminalized by that law.

 

[onecent]

Quote:
DANG SKIPPY!!!!!

...............think that would work?? for real???

 

[theFox]

I visited your cities web site and downloaded the land use ordinances, however I don't know what zone you are in there is a R-40 zone that allows agricultural uses, I have yet to find a full set of laws for your city maybe I haven't done enough poking around.

Not that what I think has any bearing on things, after all I am not a lawyer, and I didn't stay at any Holiday Express ever. But it sure appears to me that there were too many hands in the writing of that particular bit of tripe.

 

[onecent]

Quote:
hi the fox, i have a co-op agent going through about 300 pages of laws, so far he has found some helpful stuff, one of which is if a commissioner gives the "ok" and said animal keeper gets permission from the neighbors and a permit, then its ok!?!? heck that's a piece of cake for me, my neighbors truly love my chickens!

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
I don't see where you are coming from at all. It seems pretty straight forward to me. This is not a corporation--it is a city/town. What Federal laws does it violate? Ditto for state laws?

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
DANG SKIPPY!!!!!

...............think that would work?? for real???

No. There is a significant difference in deliberately keeping bees and having wild bees occasionally transit your property. It could be used to mean that if there is a hive on your property you must have it destroyed or removed, which seems fairly sensible in a city.