Neighborhood dog dispute sends Animal Control Ordinance back to committee for a re-write | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    We've said it before, "... getting involved in neighborhood dog disputes is almost always a battle you can't win. Disputes are seldom resolved, just adjudicated and when adjudicated one side wins and the other side loses. Chances are, the one trying to resolve the dispute ends up not being liked by either side." And it would appear that the newly proposed Animal Control Ordinance should perhaps more aptly be titled: "Choose up sides."

    Click here to review a draft. Subsequent changes have been made and more are coming. The Beaufort County Board of Commissioners decided at their August 5, 2013 meeting to not adopt the ordinance but send it back to the Animal Control Committee for further revisions.

    That action came after "the other side" was heard during a public hearing on the proposed ordinance.

    At prior meetings, the board had heard from one side - the complainer(s). That was mostly from Russell Morgan who lives on Hollis Drive. He repeated his argument for the need for the ordinance by saying that without it residential development will be hurt. He argued that dog pens with "too many" dogs causes a neighborhood nuisance.

    But at Monday night's meeting the person of whom Mr. Morgan was complaining, Julianne Harris, appeared before the board to explain her situation. She resides at 408 Ft. Hill Dr. in the Blounts Creek area and operates a private, self-financed animal rescue operation. She stated that she had been doing so for fourteen years. Part of her basic argument was that while she has eleven dogs (at present) that are kept in kennels in her yard, that her property is relatively isolated and that she had been there before either Mr. Morgan or her closest neighbor, Marvin Rountree the other complainant, ever arrived. Another neighbor, Curtis Paramore also spoke in favor of the ordinance.

    There is, of course, much more to the dispute but what is not obvious from the public hearing is that "the problem" here is a single neighborhood dog dispute. But the ordinance would apply to the entire county. No one else spoke to the issue at the public hearing...except those from this one neighborhood. Another neighbor, Lottie Swanberg spoke in support of the rescue operation and Ms. Harris presented letter of support from other neighbors. It should be noted that some of those in support of Ms. Harris live closer to her property than do Mr. Morgan and Mr. Paramore.

    Ms. Harris pointed out that the proposed ordinance is vague and nebulous leaving the determined of "nuisance" open to interpretation.

    We have interviewed several people who have reviewed the proposal and indeed we found that Beaufort County is probably headed into quicksand. For example, we asked several people: "how many dogs does this ordinance allow one person to have before it becomes a "nuisance"?" There was not a consistent answer.

    Likewise, when we asked how they thought the "odor problem" was prohibited by the proposed ordinance and again we got inconsistent responses. Ditto the "barking problem."

    Commissioner Gary Brinn was concerned that the ordinance to "hunting dogs." But the ordinance does not clearly define what a hunting dog is - whether it is a dog that is hunting, one that sometimes hunts but is penned when not actually engaged in hunting or whether it is a particularly breed of dog.

    You get the jest of the dispute. It now becomes the duty of the Animal Control Committee to try to sort out the issues and decide how the ordinance will be revised to address them.

    Commentary

    We'll say it again. This is a "no win" situation for the county to get into. The reason we say that is that what is obvious to us is that this ordinance is being drafted to deal with one particular situation. But the circumstances across the county vary tremendously. What is a "nuisance" in one place is not in another.

    So we would respectfully suggest that the ordinance be re-titled from "Animal Control" to "People Control." Or, probably what would be more salient: "How to choose sides in a dispute between neighbors."

    We would note that the properties involved in this dispute are in a homeowners association. It would seem to us that the County would be much wiser to let homeowners associations, where they exist, deal with the unique circumstances of individual neighborhoods and that the county really does not need to impose another set of laws and regulations, administered by bureaucrats with broad discretion.

    If the county is going to jump into the middle of this, or any, neighborhood dispute we would suggest that this standard be applied to the ordinance: "will 4 out of 5 people agree, upon simply reading the ordinance, on what is prohibited in any specific factual situation?"

    For example, in this same neighborhood, located across the path from Ms. Harris, is a horse pasture of approximately 6 acres. It currently has no horses in the enclosed pasture although there is a really nice stable already there. So, how many horses can this neighbor add to the pasture before the horses become a nuisance to Ms. Harris? Or someone else? If the horses cause the dogs to bark who is guilty of being a "nuisance"? Where will the equestrians be allowed to ride before becoming a nuisance? And then if the county chooses to regulate horse riders, how about ATV riders.

    As for the "stench" Mr. Morgan complains of, that opens up a huge can of worms. How can the county enforce an ordinance that outlaws stench from dogs and not from horses, or pigs, or chickens, or PCS Phosphate for that matter?

    We will predict that unless the County is careful here, then another ordinance that will need to be enacted is an "anti-harassment" law. And here we go...

    And we have not even touched the issue of neighbors that allow their dog(s) to run loose and poop in other people's yards.

    Little cognizance has been taken of what we think is the critical issue here: private property rights. Does one neighbor have the right to tell another neighbor how they can or cannot use their property? Of course if one property owner damages or injures another then there are age-old laws for dealing with such torts. So does Beaufort County really need more new laws to inject itself into disputes between neighbors?

    It is seldom wise for a government entity to try to solve a specific dispute with a general, ambiguous law that ultimately applies to everybody. We hope the county does not get bitten by this dog dispute.

    The video below is the Public Hearing on the Animal Control Ordinance: