The retail sale of pet animals in shops will be prohibited by law throughout the state of New York, USA, from December 15, CBS News reported. The Puppy Mill Pipeline Act, which was passed by the state legislature in December 2022 and signed by Governor Kathy Hochul on December 16, applies to dogs, cats, and rabbits. It will still be legal to adopt pets through humane societies, animal rescues, and licensed breeders.
On Thursday, the New York City Council passed a bill that brings the city’s regulations into alignment with the state law and prohibits the sale of dogs and cats from retail stores as well as residential buildings, bodegas, and other unlicensed facilities. Instead, prospective pet owners will be directed to licensed breeders and rescue shelters, local news website Gothamist reported.
The sale of guinea pigs and rabbits through retail outlets was already prohibited in New York City.
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The state law is part of a growing effort across the USA to stop abusive breeders and the so-called puppy mill-to-pet store pipeline. New York is simply the latest state to implement such a law, the Associated Press reported. California has had a similar law in place since 2017. While that law requires pet shops to work with animal shelters or rescue operations, like New York is doing, it does not regulate sales by private breeders. In 2020, Maryland banned the sale of cats and dogs in pet shops, triggering pushback from shopkeepers and breeders, who challenged the measure in court. A year later, Illinois barred pet shops from selling commercially raised puppies and kittens.
“I’ve been in some of these puppy mills, and it’s haunting to this day to see how these animals were kept, and it is so unfair to the buyer of these animals that’s trying to get a family pet,” Roy Gross, chief of the Suffolk County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, told CBS News.
The New York state bill to ban sales of pets in retail stores was passed after heartbroken puppy owners brought a civil lawsuit against a pet-shop chain saying they were sold sick puppies and denied reimbursement for veterinary bills.
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In 2021, Attorney General Letitia James said her office had launched an investigation into the matter after receiving about 100 complaints. The chain, Shake A Paw, eventually agreed to pay customers $300,000 in restitution.
The attorney general’s office will enforce the new law. Stores will face penalties of up to $1,000 per violation. Critics claim the new law will harm reputable businesses, but Libby Post with the New York State Animal Protection Federation argued, “These stores can rebrand as humane pet supply stores, invite in shelters and rescues to do adoption events.”
The new law will not affect at-home breeders who sell animals born and raised on their property. Lisa Haney, who breeds dogs at her Buffalo home alongside her husband, said she supports the law. “One pet store near me, they get dogs from all over the Midwest and different large facilities, and you have no idea where they come from and who the breeder is. People are really clueless and take the puppy,” she said.
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Under the New York City regulations, a pet shop is defined as a facility other than an animal shelter where live animals are sold, exchanged, bartered, or offered for sale as pet animals to the general public at retail for profit. The definition does not include breeders who sell or offer to sell directly to consumers fewer than 25 dogs or cats per annum that are born and raised on the breeder’s residential premises. The definition also does not include duly incorporated humane societies dedicated to the care of unwanted animals that make such animals available for adoption, whether or not a fee for such adoption is charged. A person who allows an animal shelter or animal rescue group to use his premises for the purpose of making animals available for adoption will not be deemed a pet shop so long as the person does not have an ownership interest in any of the animals being made available for adoption, and does not derive a fee for providing such adoption services.
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Sandy Pawpaw is a fierce advocate of unleashing the animal in, and with, you.