County Won’t Rule the Roost

There will be no rooster rousters, no chicken confiscations, nothing for bird breeders to crow about any longer.

The county’s proposed rooster ordinance has officially flown the coop.

“Obviously, we haven’t found middle ground yet, and it may never crow again,” Ventura County Supervisor Kathy Long said Tuesday, after the panel tabled months of work to craft an ordinance that would curtail cockfighting and excessive farm noise by limiting the number of roosters.

Supervisors decided that even though existing laws against cockfighting are tough to enforce, a plan to deter the illegal blood sport by regulating poultry populations in rural areas would place too large a burden on hobbyists who breed and show hens and roosters.

The board was also influenced by news of pending state legislation that aims to give law enforcement officials a stronger arm in cockfighting cases.

The proposed ordinance would have allowed people to keep as many as four roosters without any hens. Every additional gamecock would require an accompanying hen, a move some theorized would make breeding the birds too costly for cockfighting enthusiasts.

Dr. Ronna Jurow, a poultry fancier in Santa Paula, argued that the measure would do little to help beef up enforcement of cockfighting laws, but would have certainly hurt show breeders and hundreds of children in county 4-H programs.

She called the proposal “gobbledygook.”

Current county zoning law allows as many as 30 roosters on rural half-acre lots and up to 217 on five-acre lots.

Through 1996 and into 1997, enforcement under the existing law brought in about 50 noise complaints and eight tips about cockfights, resulting in two arrests, said Ken Kipp, chief deputy in the Sheriff’s Department.

Officials from the Humane Society of Ventura County also report dozens of complaints about gamecock operations and cockfighting.

Though all four supervisors, with Supervisor John K. Flynn absent, expressed concern over cockfighting, Supervisor Frank Schillo called the proposal overkill and an enforcement nightmare. He suggested the board consider amending the county’s noise ordinance to include rooster crowing.

Supervisor Judy Mikels said the proposal touched a nerve in an agricultural county that too often pays lip service toward protecting its rural heritage.

“I’m saying if people living in the rural areas don’t like listening to a rooster crow in the morning, they darn well better move back to the city,” she said. “If you’re going to live in a rural area, you’re going to listen to a chicken . . . and that’s the way the cookie crumbles in the countryside.”