LV repeals pet shop rule
Mayor says it wouldn’t stop ‘puppy mills’
A split Las Vegas City Council on Wednesday repealed a ban on that would have kept local pet stores from selling animals they didn’t obtain from animal care facilities or rescue organizations.
The repeal came with assurances from city officials that they will work on new restrictions to crack down on inhumane breeders. The 4-3 vote followed hours of comments from passionate public speakers, where those who wanted to keep the ban in place doubled the number of those who wanted it tossed.
Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman, who favored the repeal, wants to convene a committee to look at stamping out “puppy mills” — largescale and inhumane commercial breeding operations.
“We are opposed to puppy mills. Everything they are. This will not affect puppy mills,” Goodman said of the ban. “They’re going to continue to be there.”
Councilmen Steve Seroka and Ricki Barlow and Councilwoman Michele Fiore joined Goodman in voting to repeal the ban, which was slated to take effect Jan. 6.
Pro-repeal speakers pushed for the council to overturn the ban to maintain a choice in animals for city residents. Pet shop owners said it
PET SHOPS
to a federal halfway house.
One of Payne’s lawyers, Ryan Norwood, told jurors that Payne had three goals when he traveled to Bunkerville in April 2014: “Keep everyone safe, open the lands, release the cows.”
“He worked to keep people safe,” Norwood said. “Keeping people safe is not a crime.”
A day earlier, Cliven Bundy’s lawyer said the lifelong Gold Butte rancher spent decades trying to negotiate with federal authorities about grazing cattle on thousands of acres before the standoff broke out.
Prosecutors have said the rancher and others conspired with a threat of violence to drive federal agents off public land in southeastern Nevada.
Agents were attempting to carry out a court order to round up Cliven Bundy’s cattle. Prosecutors have said the rancher and two of his sons, Ammon and Ryan, organized the standoff, which culminated in a dry river bed along Interstate 15.
Payne learned of the Bundy struggle with the federal government through a friend, his lawyer said, and he traveled from Montana, where he had been living with his grandmother, infant daughter and toddler son. When the standoff occurred, Payne was with Cliven Bundy at the family’s home several miles away.
“What a full and fair picture will show you is that what happened at that wash was a protest,” Norwood said. “They wanted to be heard, and they wanted to be listened to.”
Ryan Bundy echoed Norwood’s sentiment of safety and protection.
“We were attacked, and our home was surrounded by 200-plus armed, what appeared to be mercenaries,” he told the jury. “You should have seen all the guns pointed at us.”
The men face a series of charges, including assault on federal officers, extortion, obstruction of due administration of justice and conspiracy.
Prosecutors said Cliven Bundy hinted at violence even in the late 1990s, when he made references to standoffs with federal agents that ended in deaths, and continued to disobey court orders.
Even after Las Vegas police told him that the federal agents had started to disperse in April 2014, the rancher demanded they turn over their weapons and close down all federal parks, drawing cheers from people gathered outside his home.
Lawyers for Ammon Bundy have reserved opening statements until prosecutors have finished calling witnesses.
Mary Jo Rugwell, the Bureau of Land Management’s former Southern Nevada district manager, took the witness stand Wednesday afternoon as the government’s first witness in the trial that could last through February.
“Mr. Bundy was in continuous trespass on Bunkerville land,” she told jurors.
Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702380-1039. Follow @randompoker on Twitter.