Delray pet sale ban may change

DELRAY BEACH — Delray city commissioners are poised to amend the city’s ban on the sale of commercially bred dogs and cats to prevent small pet stores from profiting from regular adoption events.

The ordinance that commissioners are set to vote on Tuesday would limit small pet stores to having only four adoption events per year and charging no more than $300 for a pet.

It would also prevent pet stores from holding adoption events from animal rescue organizations or shelters affiliated with the pet store.

City Attorney R. Max Lohman said the legislation will ensure pet stores aren’t masquerading commercial sales as adoptions.

“Basically pet store owners [are] trying to exploit a loophole in the code to form their own not-for-profit or rescue to facilitate or perpetrate a ruse on the city to try and make it out like they are actually adopting animals out when they are actually selling them,” Lohman told the City Commission during a meeting in January.

However, the limit on adoption events only applies to pet stores under 5,000 square feet, excluding big box pet stores in Delray such as Pet Supplies Plus and PetSmart.

It appears to affect one business currently operating in the city, Waggs to Riches, said owner Kimberly Curler.

“The fact that a national chain is exempt from a rule, but I am not, is further evidence that city officials are

intent on shutting Waggs to Riches, a small business, down,” Curler said.

Curler lost more than 70 percent of her business in the Delray Beach store after the city imposed a ban on sales of commercially bred dogs and cats, she said. Since then, she’s met with nonprofits and the county shelter to reorganize her business into selling rescue dogs through adoption events, Curler said.

“The city has violated my personal civil rights and my rights as a business owner with capricious and arbitrary measures specifically designed to put me out of business,” she said.

Mayor Cary Glickstein, who owns two rescue dogs, said the ordinance was tailored to allow big box stores to hold regular adoption events because they don’t sell dogs and cats and can handle the volume.

Ultimately, Glickstein wants to prevent commercial breeders from profiting off raising animals in inhumane conditions known as puppy mills, he said.

“We’re not policing the source of the animal and I think if you eliminate the profit motive for that then it levels the playing field,” Glickstein said.

STAFF FILE PHOTO The ordinance would limit small pet stores to four adoption events a year.