MONTH: SEPTEMBER 2006
DELTA Rescue loses challenge to L.A. County
inspection requirement
LOS ANGELES--The Los Angeles
District Court of Appeal on August 8, 2006 affirmed an earlier ruling
by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Victor H. Person that the Dedication
& Everlasting Love To Animals sanctuary, better known as DELTA
Rescue, is subject to inspection by the Los Angeles County Department
of Animal Care & Control.
The 94-acre care-for-life sanctuary houses approximately 1,500 dogs
and cats. A subsidiary, Horse Rescue of America, cares for equines.
"The department annually inspected and licensed DELTA Rescue
from 1985 to 1993," summarized Metropolitan News-Enterprise
staff writer Steven Cschke. "In 1998 the [animal control] board
and DELTA Rescue entered into an agreement whereby DELTA Rescue
would be exempt from the licensing requirement as long as it retained
nonprofit status, complied with rabies vaccination requirements,
and the department had no cause to believe it was mistreating animals,
DELTA Rescue alleged."
Wrote Justice Kathryn Doi Todd, for the court, "Because the
alleged agreement would be directly contrary to the ordinance requirements
of annual inspection and licensing of animal facilities, it would
be against public policy and therefore void."
Inspection became an issue after the agreement was observed for
five years, DELTA Rescue founder Leo Grillo contended, when he sued
the rendering company that collects carcasses from Los Angeles County
animal control.
"The next month," Cschke wrote, "the department requested
permission from DELTA Rescue to inspect one of its shelters for
the purpose of issuing a license. DELTA Rescue denied that and all
subsequent requests. One year later the department, along with the
local sheriff and the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety,
searched one of DELTA Rescue's properties," under a warrant.
"Building and Safety issued 15 notices of violation,"
Cschke continued. "The animal control department told DELTA
Rescue that it intended to issue a license conditioned on the violations
being corrected, and referred the matter to the district attorney's
office. A criminal action against Grillo for operating a shelter
without a license is currently pending."
Grillo contends that the inspection was reinstated as retalitation
for his case against D&D Rendering, of Vernon, and for mailings
which have been intensely critical of Los Angeles County animal
control director Marcia Mayeda.
The youngest person ever to head Los Angeles County animal control,
when hired in July 2001, Mayeda has helped to cut the combined Los
Angeles city and county shelter killing toll from 14.5 dogs and
cats killed per resident at the beginning of her tenure to just
3.9 in the most recent fiscal year.
Mayeda has also put new emphasis on inspecting and licensing animal
care facilities, after inheriting a long-running dispute over regulation
involving multiple agencies and Wildlife Waystation, of Angeles
National Forest.
The value of inspection was evident in November 2002 when neighboring
San Bernardino county charged Tiger Rescue founder John Weinhart
with neglecting 40 tigers at the Colton sanctuary, which was subsequently
closed.
In April 2003 Riverside County animal control officers and state
wildlife officials found 88 dead tiger cubs at Weinhart's Glen Avon
home. Weinhart was in February 2005 convicted of cruelty and child
endangerment.
The California Department of Fish & Game is required by law
to annually inspect exotic animal facilties, but actually visited
only 14 of 338 sites in 2004, Los Angeles Times staff writer Amanda
Covarrubias learned in April 2005 from state documents. Fifty-one
exotic animal facilities are located within Los Angeles County.
There is no California state inspection of dog and cat shelters.
Regulation of dog and cat facilities is left to local jurisdictions.
Grillo told ANIMAL PEOPLE early in the DELTA Rescue case that his
objection to inspection is not to inspection per se, but rather
to being inspected by a local agency with a contrasting operating
philosophy, which he called a conflict of interest. Grillo called
for state inspection of shelters, unlikely to be enacted in California
in an era of budget cuts and reduced state-level regulation.
No-kills vs. animal control
DELTA Rescue is known for providing quality care-to
formerly feral cats and abandoned dogs, mostly pit bull terriers,
whom founder Leo Grillo has found in the nearby Angeles National
Forest and on other public lands.
However, the DELTA Rescue case evolved as animal control agencies
throughout the U.S. struggle to cope with increasingly frequent
shelter neglect cases, typically involving no-kill facilities operated
by lone individuals. Thirty-seven incorporated nonprofit no-kill
shelters were either prosecuted or warned for alleged animal neglect
during 2005.
Some cases have been dropped amid claims by no-kill advocates that
the real issue was philosophical conflict.
Fairbanks North Star Borough, Alaska, in mid-August 2006 returned
about two dozen animals to Loving Companions Animal Rescue, operated
by Donna Buck-Davis, two weeks after a controversial August 2 raid
by animal control officers. No charges were filed.
The raid was apparently precipitated by a complaint from local resident
Valerie Sims, who took about a dozen puppies to Buck-Davis, but
later alleged that they were prematurely sterilized and became infected
when children played with them at a Tanana Valley State Fair petting
booth.
Buck-Davis told Chris Eshleman of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
that Loving Companions sponsors about 700 sterilization surgeries
per year.
Loving Companions houses about 80 to 100 animals, Eshleman reported.
Precious Pets, of Hesperia, California, housing 55 cats and 28 dogs,
was told by animal control officers in late July 2006 "to make
$40,000 of renovations within a week, move or be shut down,"
due to zoning violations, reported Hesperia Star staff writer Beau
Yarbrough.
"We've been receiving a series of complaints," Hesperia
deputy director of development services Tom Harp told Yarbrough.
By mid-August, however, Harp was looking at options for reclassifying
Precious Pets from a "kennel" to a business in the same
category as veterinary clinics and pet stores, which would allow
the two-year-old shelter to remain where it is.
Among other recent prominent no-kill shelter cases:
* Bridgeport Superior Court Judge Arthur Hiller on July 28 ordered
Companions for Life founder Robbin D'Urso, 44, of Fairfield, Connecticut,
to surrender custody of three children who are between the ages
of seven and 11 to her estranged husband, Vincent D'Urso, pending
compliance with a home clean-up order.
One day earlier police seized 129 dogs from Robbin D'Urso's premises
and changed her with 14 counts of cruelty. She was also charged
with contempt of court for allegedly violating an order to keep
no more than three dogs on the property.
"Robbin and Vincent D'Urso, married in 1993, are locked in
a bitter divorce dispute. Vincent D'Urso claims his wife has a drug
and alcohol problem, and poisoned his Pepsi with Syrup of Ipecac
on January 26, 2006," reported Connecticut Post staff writers
Andrew Brophy and Daniel Tepfer. "Fairfield police also are
investigating a complaint that Robbin D'Urso threatened one of her
neighbors," Brophy and Tepfer continued. "The neighbor
previously complained that D'Urso spray-painted profanities on his
house, but police said they could not prove that. State Attorney
General Richard Blumenthal said that his office has evidence Companions
for Life may have failed to comply with state charity laws.
"According to its latest report, the organization raised $44,000,
purportedly for the purpose of animal rescue, and spent $48,000.
Our investigation concerns possible improper use of these funds,"
Blumenthal said.
The other Companions for Life trustee, Martin Lopow, 44, of Bridgeport,
told Brophy that he had delivered 200 dogs to Robbin D'Urso in 2004
and 2005. Lopow said he received the dogs from a rescuer in Virginia.
* A grand jury in Maricopa County, Arizona, on August 1 reinstated
cruelty charges against Hooved Animal Society of Arizona operator
Cynthia Karen Voss, 45, for allegedly neglecting 11 horses who were
seized from the sanctuary by sheriff's deputies in October 2005.
The initial charges "were dropped May 25 in the Hassayampa
Justice Court pending further investigation," wrote Brent Whiting
of the Arizona Republic. "Court records show Voss was sentenced
Jan. 28, 2004, to a two-year term of unsupervised probation after
a Yavapai County conviction on a misdemeanor charge of animal abuse,"
Whiting added.
* Animal control officers in Preston County, West Virginia, on June
30 seized 164 allegedly neglected dogs and cats from Star Ridge
Ranch & Rescue in Bruceton Mills. Six animals were found dead.
Another 30 were euthanized at the scene, due to the severity of
their condition. Preston County Sheriff's Deputy Joshua Bolyard
told news media that legal research would be necessary to determine
who to charge.
* Animal control in Berkeley County, West Virginia, on July 11 seized
149 dogs from Second Chance Rescue, of Inwood, charging founder
Mara Spade, 61, with neglect. Second Chance offered animals for
adoption at pet supply stores and a veterinary clinic in Loudoun
County, Virginia. Loudoun County animal control director Thomas
Koenig told the Washington Post that his agency had received nine
complaints about Second Chance since 2003, and had issued Spade
a written warning for allegedly leaving dogs unattended in a closed
van, but had not brought charges against her.
Berkeley County animal control officer Donna McMahan "tried
for several years to inspect Spade's property but received a search
warrant only in June," the Washington Post reported.
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