Letter to Mayor Elect Bloomberg Outlining the Numerous Opportunities
to Improve NYC's Policies Regarding Animals
December, 2001
THE ASSOCIATION OF THE BAR
OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
42 WEST 44TH STREET
NEW YORK, NY 10036-6689
COMMITTEE ON LEGAL ISSUES PERTAINING TO ANIMALS
Numerous untapped opportunities exist to improve New York City,s policies regarding animals that have the potential to reap enormous benefits for the City. Many of these opportunities may be realized merely through the application of a new attitude from City government that focuses attention on the enormous potential for private/public partnerships in this area, recognition of the importance of animals to so many of the residents of this City, and a caring attitude to the animals themselves. This report seeks to address a few of the areas in which the City can have a real impact on the welfare of animals, i.e., Animal Care and Control, Humane Law Enforcement, Humane Education, Carriage Horses, and Pets in Housing.
Animal Care and Control
One of the most unpleasant tasks of municipal government is the collection and killing of unwanted dogs and cats. However, because of the enormous affection that so many people have for animals, communities have begun to realize that, with proper management, homeless animals need not be a burden but can be a wonderful gift. Unfortunately, New York City has not yet begun to operate its animal control facility in ways that maximize the opportunity for a good experience for people and positive outcomes for homeless animals.
New York City,s animal control obligations are carried out by The Center for Animal Care and Control ["CACC"], which is a quasi-public corporation whose board is appointed by the Mayor and which was set up specifically to contract with the City through the Department of Health to provide animal control services. These services consist, for the most part, of the obligation to accept, collect and dispose of unwanted and improperly cared for dogs and cats and to return dogs and cats who are lost to their homes. The contract also briefly notes that the CACC is obligated "to provide adoption services at the shelters and receiving facilities and shall promote adoption as a means of placing animals." No further specifics or performance goals are provided regarding the CACC,s obligations to place, rather than kill, animals.
There are, of course, many other completely private non-profit animal services organizations in the City that, unlike the CACC, have no contractual obligation to the City to provide animal control services. Some of these, including the ASPCA, the Humane Society of New York, Bide-A-Wee, Animal Haven, and Brooklyn Animal Resources Coalition ["BARC"], have small shelters of their own which they use to take in dogs and cats from the CACC as well as from individuals. Unlike the CACC, they are not required to take in any more animals than they choose and are not required to take their animals from New York City. North Shore Animal League, while located outside the City in Port Washington, takes in very few animals from the City, but adopts over 10,000 animals into New York City each year. Very significantly, many other small organizations, as well as numerous individuals, operate as "rescuers," taking small numbers of animals at a time from the CACC or from individuals into their own homes until they can find permanent homes for them. The work these people do, generally funded out of their own pockets, is often both heroic and unappreciated, except by the animals whose lives they save.
In 2000, the CACC took in 60,838 animals and killed 41,207. Of the animals who went to new homes, the CACC transferred 8994 animals to rescuers and private shelters, while itself adopting out to the public only 5280. There is a widespread perception among people who care about animals that these numbers could be vastly improved. Moreover, neither the CACC nor New York City,s private animal protection organizations adequately provide many important animal services found in some other cities, including widespread spay/neuter services for animals outside of the shelter system, feral cat colony management and sterilization programs, a state of the art computer system for tracking and rehoming lost animals, and the use of aggressive marketing techniques, including convenient adoption sites.
Furthermore, relations between the CACC and the private animal protection community, both individual and organizational, is wary and often strained. Although volunteerism is the backbone of any successful animal operation, the CACC has, at times, had no volunteer program and, at best, a limited one. The relations between the CACC and private animal protection organizations, both small and large, has also been poor. In particular, the rescue community, which must curry favor with the CACC in order to be afforded the opportunity to receive animals, has been alienated in ways that appear to be completely unnecessary. For example, rescuers were recently asked to complete an intrusive 12 page questionnaire before being entitled to take animals from the CACC and the CACC has recently begun charging rescuers and other shelters for taking animals. Without underestimating the depth of the financial crisis facing the City, it hardly seems productive to charge people for taking animals who would otherwise have to be housed and then killed at the City,s expense.
A number of ways exist to improve New York City,s animal control system.
Animal Control Structure. First, consideration should be given to restructuring the system in ways that would ultimately reduce the City,s obligations but make it more accountable for those obligations it retains. The most successful municipal model for animal control is San Francisco, where animal control services are not performed via a contract, but are performed by the City itself, through a Department of Animal Care and Control. Crucially, while the Department does do some adoptions itself, a completely private agency, the San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (not affiliated with New York,s ASPCA), has entered into a contract with the Department to take from it all adoptable animals for whom it is, itself, unable to find homes. Thus, the City,s role is primarily collecting stray and unwanted animals, and killing those who are unadoptable, i.e., those who are too sick, or too aggressive, to be homed. The private agency finds homes for the adoptable animals. The SFSPCA has become, in part because it is not in the business of killing animals, extremely successful and an enormous community asset. The Department of Animal Care and Control, which is strongly motivated to classify animals as adoptable thereby requiring that the SFSPCA take them, is not perceived as killing animals unnecessarily and not seen in a negative light. Ultimately the development of this public/private split, with many of the most expensive obligations involved in holding and adopting out animals being carried by the private agency, is a very cost effective measure for a municipality.
One problem in New York City,s structure is that there is no municipal agency responsible for animal protection and thus no direct accountability. The CACC is not truly a City agency. The Department of Health, with which it contracts, has no mandate to protect animals, but only a mandate to protect people from animals, such as through dog licensing and rabies control. Many advocates for animals have advocated for a Department of Animal Services as a separate City agency. Certainly this would be one way, though perhaps not the only way, to create accountability within the City for a positive outcome. Clearly, however, no system will work until a specific City agency is charged with responsibility for a positive outcome and is held accountable for failure to achieve it.
The second problem in New York City,s structure is that there is no separation between the agency that must kill animals and the agency that is primarily responsible for finding homes for adoptable animals. Both of these functions are held by the CACC. One result is that there is pressure, both real and perceived, on the CACC to classify animals as unadoptable. The agency is inevitably judged by the percentage of adoptable animals it kills each year. By classifying animals as unadoptable, it improves its numbers without killing any fewer animals. Thus, when the CACC claims that it is killing far fewer adoptable animals than in prior years, even though the number of animals killed has remained essentially stable, those claims are generally met with suspicion. Another result is that the agency is severely hampered in its ability to raise funds, since people are often reluctant to give money to organizations that kill animals. Thus, the CACC, though it was deliberately set up as a not-for-profit corporation that would be able to accept private donations, presumably to help pay for improved adoption services, has a built in disadvantage in fundraising.
One reason that New York has not yet developed the crucial split between its primary animal adoption agency and its animal killing facility is that no private organization has been able or willing to come forward and obligate itself to take all of the City,s adoptable animals, as the SFSPCA has done in San Francisco. The development by the City of a relationship with such an organization, or, perhaps, a coalition of such organizations, is crucial. Viable candidates for such a role clearly exist in New York, and this Committee would be happy to assist in identifying such candidates and assisting in any way it can in fostering such a relationship. It should be noted in this context, in fairness to the CACC, that numerous organizations raise enormous amounts of money from New York City,s animal lovers without currently playing a sufficient role in helping New York City,s homeless animals. However, it should also be noted that the fact that the CACC has recently begun charging other organizations, small and large, to take animals is completely wrongheaded. Organizations that take on animals to hold them for adoption are already assuming an expense and an obligation that the City would otherwise bear. They should be rewarded, or at least not punished, for doing so.
Professional Management. Since the inception of the CACC, there has been inadequate recognition on the part of the City that animal control is a profession that requires specific skills, training and experience relating to, among other things, animal care and behavior, general management, public relations and municipal government. Proper care of large numbers of animals is a difficult task and is constantly changing in light of new developments within the profession and new attitudes on the part of the public regarding the immorality of a collect and kill policy. A crucial first step should be the appointment to the board of the CACC of people who are qualified to oversee all of these functions and judge whether current management is performing them adequately. Moreover, there should be reconsideration of the requirement that the Commissioners of Sanitation, Police and Health all serve on the Board. Furthermore, the executive director of the CACC, as well as the directors of each of the shelters, must be evaluated by these criteria.
Full Service Shelters. In 2000, the City Council passed a law requiring a full service shelter in each borough. This Committee strongly supported this legislation, since such a requirement, in a city of this size, is hardly onerous. Unfortunately, in spite of the booming economic situation then in place, the City has not complied with the law to date. While enormous new challenges face the City, this project must not be shelved. It is simply unconscionable that there is no full service animal shelter in the Bronx or in Queens. These communities have been shortchanged.
Humane Law Enforcement
Criminal Law Enforcement. Cruelty to animals is a criminal offense in New York State, at both the misdemeanor and felony levels. Organized animal fighting, such as cockfighting and dogfighting, is a felony. While, like any other criminal law, these statutes are enforceable by the police and prosecuted by the local district attorney, for historical reasons, a unique situation exists in that they are also enforced by private agencies, i.e., Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which may employ peace officers for this purpose. SPCAs are not government funded for this purpose and generally have many other functions in addition to their law enforcement duties. New York City,s SPCA is the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals ["ASPCA"]. Contrary to popular belief, the ASPCA is not an umbrella organization for other SPCAs and is not affiliated with them. It does, however, have law enforcement powers throughout New York State. While, in some counties, local SPCAs may co- exist with the ASPCA, in most of New York City, the ASPCA has the exclusive right to humane law enforcement powers.
Unfortunately, because of this unique situation of parallel law enforcement obligations, accountability for humane law enforcement is severely lacking and very legitimate complaints regarding cruelty to animals have gone unaddressed. This is a long-standing source of enormous frustration and anger among many New York City residents who care about animals. Moreover, recent extensive research demonstrating the connection between cruelty to animals and violence towards people, particularly within the home, makes the slighting of these crimes not only unconscionable as far as the animals are concerned, but a missed opportunity for preventing other acts of violence.
For example, a perception sometimes exists on the part of the police that the ASPCA is in charge of cruelty law enforcement in the City, and police precincts will often simply refer individuals reporting cruelty to animals to the ASPCA. The ASPCA, which has 12 to 14 humane law enforcement agents, and, as noted, has jurisdiction throughout the state, can obviously not be expected to assume the full task of physically responding to all cruelty law complaints throughout the City. It does not even have the resources to maintain a staffed phone line 24/7. On the other hand, while the police department has 55,000 officers stationed throughout the City, it has innumerable other responsibilities and is not always familiar with the needs of animals.
Clearly, both the police and the ASPCA have roles to play, which must be coordinated in a way that provides accountability and efficiency, rather than deniability. This should not necessarily require the allocation of additional resources. It is a matter of using the available resources in better ways. For example, one way to achieve this goal would be for the police department to assign officers within each precinct who are trained in humane law enforcement to respond to calls from the public as well as to calls from the ASPCA which the ASPCA has screened and ascertained to be substantive. That officer could also refer callers to the ASPCA when he or she believed that they would be better handled by animal care advice than by law enforcement. In any case, in order to establish a workable system, a small task force should be established within the Department. A possible model with which it could work is the Broward County, Florida, Sheriff,s Office, which has a renowned animal cruelty unit that is fully coordinated with other domestic violence units and works closely and efficiently with private humane officers.
Regardless of the ways in which the Department and the ASPCA coordinate their roles, it is obviously necessary that the Police Department accept responsibility for cruelty law enforcement. A meaningful way for the Department to do so is the education of individual officers on the laws prohibiting cruelty to animals and the resources available to them when they are confronted with a situation involving animals. In aid of this goal, this Committee has prepared an informational card, which could be a mandated insert in officers, memo books, outlining the relevant laws and resources, which it would be happy to make available to the Department. Required training on this topic should also be included as part of the Police Academy curriculum for prospective officers and as continuing training at the precinct level. Another important goal is to educate prosecutors who, because the relevant laws are contained in the Agriculture and Markets Law, rather than in the Penal Law, are also sometimes unfamiliar with them. In aid of this goal, this Committee has prepared a brochure which sets forth in one place all of the relevant laws relating to animals.
In addition to the unfamiliarity of officers with the relevant laws, another reason it has been difficult for the Department to adequately respond to cruelty law violations is the necessity, when responding to such a call, to properly handle the animals who are involved, who may be injured, ill, and/or dangerous. If an animal needs to be tranquilized, officers must call the Emergency Services Unit, which is the only agency authorized to do so. Generally, the animals must be transported to the CACC, to be held pending the criminal investigation, or, if that is not necessary, most likely to be killed. The officer can either wait for the CACC to send its van to pick up the animal, which can cause substantial delays, or transport the animal him or herself. The officers often do not have the proper equipment available to properly transport the animal. Clearly, training and assisting officers with animal care responsibilities is an area in which private animal protection agencies could be encouraged to play a role crucial role.
Administrative Law Enforcement. In addition to criminal laws against cruelty, animals in New York City are, in some situations, protected by various administrative regulations, primarily of the Department of Health. For example, pet stores, private shelters, slaughterhouses and carriage horse operators are both regulated and permitted by the Department of Health, which may inspect their facilities to ensure compliance. To some extent, these facilities are also subject to regulation by the Department of Consumer Affairs. These facilities are also, of course, subject to the criminal laws prohibiting cruelty to animals.
As a practical matter, it is often the ASPCA that enforces these regulations, to the extent that they are enforced at all. However, the ASPCA does not have the power, unless it has a search warrant, to enter private areas, including slaughterhouses. Moreover, once again, the existence of duplicative responsibilities has created a lack of accountability. The ASPCA, while it may respond to complaints, does not do so unless it has the available resources and does not conduct regular inspections. It has responded to criticism in this regard by noting that it is primarily the City,s responsibility to enforce these regulations. The Department of Health, on the other hand, appears to often rely on the ASPCA to enforce the animal care requirements in its own regulations and has responded to criticism in this regard that its mandate is to protect people, not to protect animals.
Humane Education
New York State law requires authorities in "elementary schools under state control or supported wholly or in part by public money of the state to prescribe courses of instruction in the humane treatment and protection of animals . . . Such instruction may be joined with work in literature, reading, language, nature study, or ethnology" (Education Law Section 809). Unfortunately, this section has not been widely implemented in New York City schools, apparently because administrators are simply unfamiliar with its requirements.
Additionally, recently enacted New York State legislation, known as "SAVE" (Safe Schools Against Violence in Education), seeks to address violence prevention by, inter alia, requiring a civility, citizenship and character education component in the K-12 course of instruction and requiring health curricula to address issues of violence prevention. Humane education, as already required by New York State Education Law for elementary schools, is also a perfect way to comply with these additional requirements, particularly since an overwhelming amount of evidence supports the premise that animal abuse is oftentimes a precursor to violent crimes against humans. Instilling the values advocated by humane education will not only assist children in becoming sensitive and compassionate adults but will help to stop this cycle of violence before it begins.
This Committee strongly supports efforts to bring New York City,s schools into compliance with these laws and notes that, once again, enormous opportunities exist for forming partnerships with qualified private agencies that are familiar with these issues and willing to provide materials and assistance to the schools in developing humane education curricula.
Carriage Horses
One of the most contentious and politicized animal related issues in New York City is the treatment afforded to the carriage horses of Central Park. These animals are the most visible demonstration to the world of New York City,s attitude toward animals. Unfortunately, the message that is sent is not a positive one for our City. Other large cities, including London and Paris, have implemented bans on carriage horses. While this Committee supports such a ban for New York, on a more immediate basis, we urge the City to take prompt measures to implement regulations, or, where necessary, initiate or support legislation, to ameliorate the extremely harsh conditions under which our City's carriage horses currently work and live.
Presently, the City's carriage horses may be worked 9 hours a day, 7 days a week, in temperatures ranging from a low of 18 degrees to a high of 90 degrees Fahrenheit. We support a shortening of the workday for such horses to no more than a maximum of 8 hours (including rest breaks) in any consecutive 24 hour period and the enactment of a maximum allowable work period. As points of comparison, a carriage horse in Kansas City, Missouri is permitted to work only for a period of 6 hours and a similar horse in Atlanta, Georgia may not work more than 5 consecutive days or more than 50 hours in any 7 day period. Equally as important, we believe that it is imperative for the City to redefine permissible working conditions to take into effect weather factors other than temperature, such as humidity in the summer and wind in the winter. Accordingly, the Committee heartily endorses the adoption of measures, such as those proposed by the ASPCA, that would prohibit the employment of carriage horses above a certain temperature/humidity index and below a certain wind/chill factor.
In addition, the carriage horses would benefit greatly from restrictions with respect to the loads that they may be required to pull. As an example, Atlanta limits the combined weight of the carriage and all passengers therein to twice the weight of the horse and limits the total number of passengers to the design capacity of the carriage. Weight restrictions are an important safeguard for carriage horses, because of the strain placed on their bodies each time they move a carriage from a standstill position.
Under the present law, there is no provision to allow carriage horses an opportunity to graze or to exercise unfettered by a harness. To meet this need, we recommend that the City initiate measures that would require a mandatory turnout period for each horse at appropriate intervals (e.g., a 24 hour turnout period after a 7 day work week, such as is required for carriage horses in Atlanta).
The Committee also urges the City to revisit the issue of where carriage horses should be permitted to work. The streets of the City are hazardous to the health of the horses, particularly in terms of automotive emissions, and the presence of horses on the congested streets of the City puts both horses and pedestrians at risk. Repeatedly, incidents occur in which horses, spooked by traffic, run amuck down a crowded midtown street, putting their passengers, driver, and pedestrians, as well as the horses themselves, at risk. Accordingly, the only arguably appropriate work area for horses is within Central Park. The Parks Department could easily integrate routes for the horses, as well as stables, in Central Park.
We also request the City to address the conditions under which carriage horses live in those hours when they are not working. Many of the horses are returned from a long day of strenuous labor to abhorrent conditions in cramped, unventilated stalls. At a minimum, the Committee recommends that legislation be enacted to require stalls that are sufficient in size to allow a horse to turn about freely and to lie down comfortably. Routine inspections also should be implemented to verify that proper bedding is being provided and adequate food and water are available. Finally, the Committee urges the enactment of measures to prevent carriage horses from being sold for slaughter. Such legislation should specifically prohibit any sale or disposition of a carriage horse for slaughter and should include notice and recordkeeping requirements aimed at monitoring sales or dispositions to prevent circumvention of the law.
Pets in Housing
In light of New York City's extraordinarily low vacancy rate, it has long been recognized that some landlords may threaten tenants with eviction for having a well-behaved pet in violation of a boilerplate "no-pet" clause, even when the tenant has had a pet for years and other tenants in the building have pets. In order to protect against such evictions, as well as to broaden the opportunity for New York residents to keep pets, the Administrative Code limits enforcement of a no-pet clause after the tenant has openly kept the pet for three months with the knowledge of the landlord or his or her agent (Section 27-2009.1 of the Administrative Code).
Unfortunately, that law has been undermined in the courts. Until the last few years, courts interpreted the 1983 "Pet Law" to mean that once a no-pet clause in a lease is waived by a landlord, it is waived for the duration of the tenant's occupancy in the apartment. However, in 1996, the Appellate Term, First Department, ruled that the waiver is limited to the life of the pet, and the landlord can invoke the no-pet lease clause successfully if the tenant gets another pet (Park Holding Co. v Emicke, 168 Misc.2d 133, 646 NYS2d 434 (App. Term, 1st Dept. 1996).
The ramifications of this misinterpretation of the law have been devastating. Take, for example, Larry Ostrow, a senior citizen who has had a small dog in his apartment with the knowledge of his landlord ever since he moved in more than twenty years ago. When his first dog died, he obtained a new dog; when the second dog died, he acquired another dog, Waldo, a ten pound Cairn Terrier. Mr. Ostrow was recently ordered evicted. There was no allegation of a nuisance. The case centered solely on a no-pet clause in Mr. Ostrow's lease. Thus, despite the fact that the landlord failed to enforce the clause for more than twenty years and Mr. Ostrow in good faith obtained Waldo, Mr. Ostrow lost his case, lost Waldo, and had to pay $20,000 for the landlord's legal fees, in addition to his own legal fees.
Unfortunately, Mr. Ostrow is not alone. One of the primary reasons that animals are turned into the City,s shelter system are threats of eviction from current landlords or the inability to find pet-friendly housing, since no-pet clauses are contained in most standard form leases. This exacerbates an already tragic dog and cat overpopulation problem; it results in the sheltering and killing of thousands of dogs and cats each year at staggering costs to the City; and it causes tremendous hardship to New York residents and their pets.
Ironically, Congress recognized the importance of pets to people back in 1983 when it passed a law (12 USC § 1701r-1) allowing senior citizens in federally assisted housing for seniors or handicapped persons to keep pets. A similar law has since been enacted to include all people living in federally assisted housing, including those people living in New York City public housing (12 USC § 1437z-3). Thus, public housing residents by and large have entitlements to keep pets that most New York City residents are without.
Numerous studies point to the health benefits that many people derive from having pets. Pets fill a void in many people's lives, particularly those who are alone and in need of companionship, such as the elderly. These people are now placed in the untenable position of having to decide if they should stay in often substandard apartments where their pets may be allowed because they have been with them for years, or moving to better quarters, often near family members, and risk eviction if they bring their pets along with them.
We hope that the City will initiate and support legislation to clarify existing law so that once a no-pet clause is waived by a landlord, it is waived for the duration of the tenant's occupancy in the apartment, not the lifetime of any particular animal. Moreover, at least when it comes to senior citizens and the disabled, the law also should be revised to simply allow them to keep pets without fear of eviction, and without giving their landlord a three month period to enforce the no-pet clause, unless their pets create a nuisance. Conclusion
We thank you for this opportunity to express our thoughts on various problems, and proposed solutions, facing New York,s animals and those who care about them. As noted, most of these ideas are not ways in which the City should spend more money, but ways in which its money could be better spent. We would very much appreciate the opportunity to meet with you to discuss ways in which we can assist in implementing these, or other, ideas to help New York,s animals, and to thereby improve the lives of all New Yorkers, who cannot help but benefit from living in a City that shows respect for all who need its protection.
to Improve NYC's Policies Regarding Animals
December, 2001
THE ASSOCIATION OF THE BAR
OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
42 WEST 44TH STREET
NEW YORK, NY 10036-6689
COMMITTEE ON LEGAL ISSUES PERTAINING TO ANIMALS
Numerous untapped opportunities exist to improve New York City,s policies regarding animals that have the potential to reap enormous benefits for the City. Many of these opportunities may be realized merely through the application of a new attitude from City government that focuses attention on the enormous potential for private/public partnerships in this area, recognition of the importance of animals to so many of the residents of this City, and a caring attitude to the animals themselves. This report seeks to address a few of the areas in which the City can have a real impact on the welfare of animals, i.e., Animal Care and Control, Humane Law Enforcement, Humane Education, Carriage Horses, and Pets in Housing.
Animal Care and Control
One of the most unpleasant tasks of municipal government is the collection and killing of unwanted dogs and cats. However, because of the enormous affection that so many people have for animals, communities have begun to realize that, with proper management, homeless animals need not be a burden but can be a wonderful gift. Unfortunately, New York City has not yet begun to operate its animal control facility in ways that maximize the opportunity for a good experience for people and positive outcomes for homeless animals.
New York City,s animal control obligations are carried out by The Center for Animal Care and Control ["CACC"], which is a quasi-public corporation whose board is appointed by the Mayor and which was set up specifically to contract with the City through the Department of Health to provide animal control services. These services consist, for the most part, of the obligation to accept, collect and dispose of unwanted and improperly cared for dogs and cats and to return dogs and cats who are lost to their homes. The contract also briefly notes that the CACC is obligated "to provide adoption services at the shelters and receiving facilities and shall promote adoption as a means of placing animals." No further specifics or performance goals are provided regarding the CACC,s obligations to place, rather than kill, animals.
There are, of course, many other completely private non-profit animal services organizations in the City that, unlike the CACC, have no contractual obligation to the City to provide animal control services. Some of these, including the ASPCA, the Humane Society of New York, Bide-A-Wee, Animal Haven, and Brooklyn Animal Resources Coalition ["BARC"], have small shelters of their own which they use to take in dogs and cats from the CACC as well as from individuals. Unlike the CACC, they are not required to take in any more animals than they choose and are not required to take their animals from New York City. North Shore Animal League, while located outside the City in Port Washington, takes in very few animals from the City, but adopts over 10,000 animals into New York City each year. Very significantly, many other small organizations, as well as numerous individuals, operate as "rescuers," taking small numbers of animals at a time from the CACC or from individuals into their own homes until they can find permanent homes for them. The work these people do, generally funded out of their own pockets, is often both heroic and unappreciated, except by the animals whose lives they save.
In 2000, the CACC took in 60,838 animals and killed 41,207. Of the animals who went to new homes, the CACC transferred 8994 animals to rescuers and private shelters, while itself adopting out to the public only 5280. There is a widespread perception among people who care about animals that these numbers could be vastly improved. Moreover, neither the CACC nor New York City,s private animal protection organizations adequately provide many important animal services found in some other cities, including widespread spay/neuter services for animals outside of the shelter system, feral cat colony management and sterilization programs, a state of the art computer system for tracking and rehoming lost animals, and the use of aggressive marketing techniques, including convenient adoption sites.
Furthermore, relations between the CACC and the private animal protection community, both individual and organizational, is wary and often strained. Although volunteerism is the backbone of any successful animal operation, the CACC has, at times, had no volunteer program and, at best, a limited one. The relations between the CACC and private animal protection organizations, both small and large, has also been poor. In particular, the rescue community, which must curry favor with the CACC in order to be afforded the opportunity to receive animals, has been alienated in ways that appear to be completely unnecessary. For example, rescuers were recently asked to complete an intrusive 12 page questionnaire before being entitled to take animals from the CACC and the CACC has recently begun charging rescuers and other shelters for taking animals. Without underestimating the depth of the financial crisis facing the City, it hardly seems productive to charge people for taking animals who would otherwise have to be housed and then killed at the City,s expense.
A number of ways exist to improve New York City,s animal control system.
Animal Control Structure. First, consideration should be given to restructuring the system in ways that would ultimately reduce the City,s obligations but make it more accountable for those obligations it retains. The most successful municipal model for animal control is San Francisco, where animal control services are not performed via a contract, but are performed by the City itself, through a Department of Animal Care and Control. Crucially, while the Department does do some adoptions itself, a completely private agency, the San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (not affiliated with New York,s ASPCA), has entered into a contract with the Department to take from it all adoptable animals for whom it is, itself, unable to find homes. Thus, the City,s role is primarily collecting stray and unwanted animals, and killing those who are unadoptable, i.e., those who are too sick, or too aggressive, to be homed. The private agency finds homes for the adoptable animals. The SFSPCA has become, in part because it is not in the business of killing animals, extremely successful and an enormous community asset. The Department of Animal Care and Control, which is strongly motivated to classify animals as adoptable thereby requiring that the SFSPCA take them, is not perceived as killing animals unnecessarily and not seen in a negative light. Ultimately the development of this public/private split, with many of the most expensive obligations involved in holding and adopting out animals being carried by the private agency, is a very cost effective measure for a municipality.
One problem in New York City,s structure is that there is no municipal agency responsible for animal protection and thus no direct accountability. The CACC is not truly a City agency. The Department of Health, with which it contracts, has no mandate to protect animals, but only a mandate to protect people from animals, such as through dog licensing and rabies control. Many advocates for animals have advocated for a Department of Animal Services as a separate City agency. Certainly this would be one way, though perhaps not the only way, to create accountability within the City for a positive outcome. Clearly, however, no system will work until a specific City agency is charged with responsibility for a positive outcome and is held accountable for failure to achieve it.
The second problem in New York City,s structure is that there is no separation between the agency that must kill animals and the agency that is primarily responsible for finding homes for adoptable animals. Both of these functions are held by the CACC. One result is that there is pressure, both real and perceived, on the CACC to classify animals as unadoptable. The agency is inevitably judged by the percentage of adoptable animals it kills each year. By classifying animals as unadoptable, it improves its numbers without killing any fewer animals. Thus, when the CACC claims that it is killing far fewer adoptable animals than in prior years, even though the number of animals killed has remained essentially stable, those claims are generally met with suspicion. Another result is that the agency is severely hampered in its ability to raise funds, since people are often reluctant to give money to organizations that kill animals. Thus, the CACC, though it was deliberately set up as a not-for-profit corporation that would be able to accept private donations, presumably to help pay for improved adoption services, has a built in disadvantage in fundraising.
One reason that New York has not yet developed the crucial split between its primary animal adoption agency and its animal killing facility is that no private organization has been able or willing to come forward and obligate itself to take all of the City,s adoptable animals, as the SFSPCA has done in San Francisco. The development by the City of a relationship with such an organization, or, perhaps, a coalition of such organizations, is crucial. Viable candidates for such a role clearly exist in New York, and this Committee would be happy to assist in identifying such candidates and assisting in any way it can in fostering such a relationship. It should be noted in this context, in fairness to the CACC, that numerous organizations raise enormous amounts of money from New York City,s animal lovers without currently playing a sufficient role in helping New York City,s homeless animals. However, it should also be noted that the fact that the CACC has recently begun charging other organizations, small and large, to take animals is completely wrongheaded. Organizations that take on animals to hold them for adoption are already assuming an expense and an obligation that the City would otherwise bear. They should be rewarded, or at least not punished, for doing so.
Professional Management. Since the inception of the CACC, there has been inadequate recognition on the part of the City that animal control is a profession that requires specific skills, training and experience relating to, among other things, animal care and behavior, general management, public relations and municipal government. Proper care of large numbers of animals is a difficult task and is constantly changing in light of new developments within the profession and new attitudes on the part of the public regarding the immorality of a collect and kill policy. A crucial first step should be the appointment to the board of the CACC of people who are qualified to oversee all of these functions and judge whether current management is performing them adequately. Moreover, there should be reconsideration of the requirement that the Commissioners of Sanitation, Police and Health all serve on the Board. Furthermore, the executive director of the CACC, as well as the directors of each of the shelters, must be evaluated by these criteria.
Full Service Shelters. In 2000, the City Council passed a law requiring a full service shelter in each borough. This Committee strongly supported this legislation, since such a requirement, in a city of this size, is hardly onerous. Unfortunately, in spite of the booming economic situation then in place, the City has not complied with the law to date. While enormous new challenges face the City, this project must not be shelved. It is simply unconscionable that there is no full service animal shelter in the Bronx or in Queens. These communities have been shortchanged.
Humane Law Enforcement
Criminal Law Enforcement. Cruelty to animals is a criminal offense in New York State, at both the misdemeanor and felony levels. Organized animal fighting, such as cockfighting and dogfighting, is a felony. While, like any other criminal law, these statutes are enforceable by the police and prosecuted by the local district attorney, for historical reasons, a unique situation exists in that they are also enforced by private agencies, i.e., Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which may employ peace officers for this purpose. SPCAs are not government funded for this purpose and generally have many other functions in addition to their law enforcement duties. New York City,s SPCA is the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals ["ASPCA"]. Contrary to popular belief, the ASPCA is not an umbrella organization for other SPCAs and is not affiliated with them. It does, however, have law enforcement powers throughout New York State. While, in some counties, local SPCAs may co- exist with the ASPCA, in most of New York City, the ASPCA has the exclusive right to humane law enforcement powers.
Unfortunately, because of this unique situation of parallel law enforcement obligations, accountability for humane law enforcement is severely lacking and very legitimate complaints regarding cruelty to animals have gone unaddressed. This is a long-standing source of enormous frustration and anger among many New York City residents who care about animals. Moreover, recent extensive research demonstrating the connection between cruelty to animals and violence towards people, particularly within the home, makes the slighting of these crimes not only unconscionable as far as the animals are concerned, but a missed opportunity for preventing other acts of violence.
For example, a perception sometimes exists on the part of the police that the ASPCA is in charge of cruelty law enforcement in the City, and police precincts will often simply refer individuals reporting cruelty to animals to the ASPCA. The ASPCA, which has 12 to 14 humane law enforcement agents, and, as noted, has jurisdiction throughout the state, can obviously not be expected to assume the full task of physically responding to all cruelty law complaints throughout the City. It does not even have the resources to maintain a staffed phone line 24/7. On the other hand, while the police department has 55,000 officers stationed throughout the City, it has innumerable other responsibilities and is not always familiar with the needs of animals.
Clearly, both the police and the ASPCA have roles to play, which must be coordinated in a way that provides accountability and efficiency, rather than deniability. This should not necessarily require the allocation of additional resources. It is a matter of using the available resources in better ways. For example, one way to achieve this goal would be for the police department to assign officers within each precinct who are trained in humane law enforcement to respond to calls from the public as well as to calls from the ASPCA which the ASPCA has screened and ascertained to be substantive. That officer could also refer callers to the ASPCA when he or she believed that they would be better handled by animal care advice than by law enforcement. In any case, in order to establish a workable system, a small task force should be established within the Department. A possible model with which it could work is the Broward County, Florida, Sheriff,s Office, which has a renowned animal cruelty unit that is fully coordinated with other domestic violence units and works closely and efficiently with private humane officers.
Regardless of the ways in which the Department and the ASPCA coordinate their roles, it is obviously necessary that the Police Department accept responsibility for cruelty law enforcement. A meaningful way for the Department to do so is the education of individual officers on the laws prohibiting cruelty to animals and the resources available to them when they are confronted with a situation involving animals. In aid of this goal, this Committee has prepared an informational card, which could be a mandated insert in officers, memo books, outlining the relevant laws and resources, which it would be happy to make available to the Department. Required training on this topic should also be included as part of the Police Academy curriculum for prospective officers and as continuing training at the precinct level. Another important goal is to educate prosecutors who, because the relevant laws are contained in the Agriculture and Markets Law, rather than in the Penal Law, are also sometimes unfamiliar with them. In aid of this goal, this Committee has prepared a brochure which sets forth in one place all of the relevant laws relating to animals.
In addition to the unfamiliarity of officers with the relevant laws, another reason it has been difficult for the Department to adequately respond to cruelty law violations is the necessity, when responding to such a call, to properly handle the animals who are involved, who may be injured, ill, and/or dangerous. If an animal needs to be tranquilized, officers must call the Emergency Services Unit, which is the only agency authorized to do so. Generally, the animals must be transported to the CACC, to be held pending the criminal investigation, or, if that is not necessary, most likely to be killed. The officer can either wait for the CACC to send its van to pick up the animal, which can cause substantial delays, or transport the animal him or herself. The officers often do not have the proper equipment available to properly transport the animal. Clearly, training and assisting officers with animal care responsibilities is an area in which private animal protection agencies could be encouraged to play a role crucial role.
Administrative Law Enforcement. In addition to criminal laws against cruelty, animals in New York City are, in some situations, protected by various administrative regulations, primarily of the Department of Health. For example, pet stores, private shelters, slaughterhouses and carriage horse operators are both regulated and permitted by the Department of Health, which may inspect their facilities to ensure compliance. To some extent, these facilities are also subject to regulation by the Department of Consumer Affairs. These facilities are also, of course, subject to the criminal laws prohibiting cruelty to animals.
As a practical matter, it is often the ASPCA that enforces these regulations, to the extent that they are enforced at all. However, the ASPCA does not have the power, unless it has a search warrant, to enter private areas, including slaughterhouses. Moreover, once again, the existence of duplicative responsibilities has created a lack of accountability. The ASPCA, while it may respond to complaints, does not do so unless it has the available resources and does not conduct regular inspections. It has responded to criticism in this regard by noting that it is primarily the City,s responsibility to enforce these regulations. The Department of Health, on the other hand, appears to often rely on the ASPCA to enforce the animal care requirements in its own regulations and has responded to criticism in this regard that its mandate is to protect people, not to protect animals.
Humane Education
New York State law requires authorities in "elementary schools under state control or supported wholly or in part by public money of the state to prescribe courses of instruction in the humane treatment and protection of animals . . . Such instruction may be joined with work in literature, reading, language, nature study, or ethnology" (Education Law Section 809). Unfortunately, this section has not been widely implemented in New York City schools, apparently because administrators are simply unfamiliar with its requirements.
Additionally, recently enacted New York State legislation, known as "SAVE" (Safe Schools Against Violence in Education), seeks to address violence prevention by, inter alia, requiring a civility, citizenship and character education component in the K-12 course of instruction and requiring health curricula to address issues of violence prevention. Humane education, as already required by New York State Education Law for elementary schools, is also a perfect way to comply with these additional requirements, particularly since an overwhelming amount of evidence supports the premise that animal abuse is oftentimes a precursor to violent crimes against humans. Instilling the values advocated by humane education will not only assist children in becoming sensitive and compassionate adults but will help to stop this cycle of violence before it begins.
This Committee strongly supports efforts to bring New York City,s schools into compliance with these laws and notes that, once again, enormous opportunities exist for forming partnerships with qualified private agencies that are familiar with these issues and willing to provide materials and assistance to the schools in developing humane education curricula.
Carriage Horses
One of the most contentious and politicized animal related issues in New York City is the treatment afforded to the carriage horses of Central Park. These animals are the most visible demonstration to the world of New York City,s attitude toward animals. Unfortunately, the message that is sent is not a positive one for our City. Other large cities, including London and Paris, have implemented bans on carriage horses. While this Committee supports such a ban for New York, on a more immediate basis, we urge the City to take prompt measures to implement regulations, or, where necessary, initiate or support legislation, to ameliorate the extremely harsh conditions under which our City's carriage horses currently work and live.
Presently, the City's carriage horses may be worked 9 hours a day, 7 days a week, in temperatures ranging from a low of 18 degrees to a high of 90 degrees Fahrenheit. We support a shortening of the workday for such horses to no more than a maximum of 8 hours (including rest breaks) in any consecutive 24 hour period and the enactment of a maximum allowable work period. As points of comparison, a carriage horse in Kansas City, Missouri is permitted to work only for a period of 6 hours and a similar horse in Atlanta, Georgia may not work more than 5 consecutive days or more than 50 hours in any 7 day period. Equally as important, we believe that it is imperative for the City to redefine permissible working conditions to take into effect weather factors other than temperature, such as humidity in the summer and wind in the winter. Accordingly, the Committee heartily endorses the adoption of measures, such as those proposed by the ASPCA, that would prohibit the employment of carriage horses above a certain temperature/humidity index and below a certain wind/chill factor.
In addition, the carriage horses would benefit greatly from restrictions with respect to the loads that they may be required to pull. As an example, Atlanta limits the combined weight of the carriage and all passengers therein to twice the weight of the horse and limits the total number of passengers to the design capacity of the carriage. Weight restrictions are an important safeguard for carriage horses, because of the strain placed on their bodies each time they move a carriage from a standstill position.
Under the present law, there is no provision to allow carriage horses an opportunity to graze or to exercise unfettered by a harness. To meet this need, we recommend that the City initiate measures that would require a mandatory turnout period for each horse at appropriate intervals (e.g., a 24 hour turnout period after a 7 day work week, such as is required for carriage horses in Atlanta).
The Committee also urges the City to revisit the issue of where carriage horses should be permitted to work. The streets of the City are hazardous to the health of the horses, particularly in terms of automotive emissions, and the presence of horses on the congested streets of the City puts both horses and pedestrians at risk. Repeatedly, incidents occur in which horses, spooked by traffic, run amuck down a crowded midtown street, putting their passengers, driver, and pedestrians, as well as the horses themselves, at risk. Accordingly, the only arguably appropriate work area for horses is within Central Park. The Parks Department could easily integrate routes for the horses, as well as stables, in Central Park.
We also request the City to address the conditions under which carriage horses live in those hours when they are not working. Many of the horses are returned from a long day of strenuous labor to abhorrent conditions in cramped, unventilated stalls. At a minimum, the Committee recommends that legislation be enacted to require stalls that are sufficient in size to allow a horse to turn about freely and to lie down comfortably. Routine inspections also should be implemented to verify that proper bedding is being provided and adequate food and water are available. Finally, the Committee urges the enactment of measures to prevent carriage horses from being sold for slaughter. Such legislation should specifically prohibit any sale or disposition of a carriage horse for slaughter and should include notice and recordkeeping requirements aimed at monitoring sales or dispositions to prevent circumvention of the law.
Pets in Housing
In light of New York City's extraordinarily low vacancy rate, it has long been recognized that some landlords may threaten tenants with eviction for having a well-behaved pet in violation of a boilerplate "no-pet" clause, even when the tenant has had a pet for years and other tenants in the building have pets. In order to protect against such evictions, as well as to broaden the opportunity for New York residents to keep pets, the Administrative Code limits enforcement of a no-pet clause after the tenant has openly kept the pet for three months with the knowledge of the landlord or his or her agent (Section 27-2009.1 of the Administrative Code).
Unfortunately, that law has been undermined in the courts. Until the last few years, courts interpreted the 1983 "Pet Law" to mean that once a no-pet clause in a lease is waived by a landlord, it is waived for the duration of the tenant's occupancy in the apartment. However, in 1996, the Appellate Term, First Department, ruled that the waiver is limited to the life of the pet, and the landlord can invoke the no-pet lease clause successfully if the tenant gets another pet (Park Holding Co. v Emicke, 168 Misc.2d 133, 646 NYS2d 434 (App. Term, 1st Dept. 1996).
The ramifications of this misinterpretation of the law have been devastating. Take, for example, Larry Ostrow, a senior citizen who has had a small dog in his apartment with the knowledge of his landlord ever since he moved in more than twenty years ago. When his first dog died, he obtained a new dog; when the second dog died, he acquired another dog, Waldo, a ten pound Cairn Terrier. Mr. Ostrow was recently ordered evicted. There was no allegation of a nuisance. The case centered solely on a no-pet clause in Mr. Ostrow's lease. Thus, despite the fact that the landlord failed to enforce the clause for more than twenty years and Mr. Ostrow in good faith obtained Waldo, Mr. Ostrow lost his case, lost Waldo, and had to pay $20,000 for the landlord's legal fees, in addition to his own legal fees.
Unfortunately, Mr. Ostrow is not alone. One of the primary reasons that animals are turned into the City,s shelter system are threats of eviction from current landlords or the inability to find pet-friendly housing, since no-pet clauses are contained in most standard form leases. This exacerbates an already tragic dog and cat overpopulation problem; it results in the sheltering and killing of thousands of dogs and cats each year at staggering costs to the City; and it causes tremendous hardship to New York residents and their pets.
Ironically, Congress recognized the importance of pets to people back in 1983 when it passed a law (12 USC § 1701r-1) allowing senior citizens in federally assisted housing for seniors or handicapped persons to keep pets. A similar law has since been enacted to include all people living in federally assisted housing, including those people living in New York City public housing (12 USC § 1437z-3). Thus, public housing residents by and large have entitlements to keep pets that most New York City residents are without.
Numerous studies point to the health benefits that many people derive from having pets. Pets fill a void in many people's lives, particularly those who are alone and in need of companionship, such as the elderly. These people are now placed in the untenable position of having to decide if they should stay in often substandard apartments where their pets may be allowed because they have been with them for years, or moving to better quarters, often near family members, and risk eviction if they bring their pets along with them.
We hope that the City will initiate and support legislation to clarify existing law so that once a no-pet clause is waived by a landlord, it is waived for the duration of the tenant's occupancy in the apartment, not the lifetime of any particular animal. Moreover, at least when it comes to senior citizens and the disabled, the law also should be revised to simply allow them to keep pets without fear of eviction, and without giving their landlord a three month period to enforce the no-pet clause, unless their pets create a nuisance. Conclusion
We thank you for this opportunity to express our thoughts on various problems, and proposed solutions, facing New York,s animals and those who care about them. As noted, most of these ideas are not ways in which the City should spend more money, but ways in which its money could be better spent. We would very much appreciate the opportunity to meet with you to discuss ways in which we can assist in implementing these, or other, ideas to help New York,s animals, and to thereby improve the lives of all New Yorkers, who cannot help but benefit from living in a City that shows respect for all who need its protection.
