More than two dozen people descended upon the Parma City Council meeting Monday night to advocate against the city’s ban on owning pit bulls. The current laws, which are more than 30 years old, contain stigma and language about breed definitions that they find concerning and outdated.
Under Parma City Ordinance 618.09, pit bulls are considered a “prohibited animal” and are mentioned by name. This is especially concerning considering some of the other 30 or so banned animals include venomous snakes, bears, cheetahs, bison, hippopotami, lions, piranha fish, sharks, tigers and wolves, among other exotic breeds from other countries.
Advocates believe lumping pit bulls alongside lions, tigers and bears creates an unfair stigma and dangerously misleading association.
The Parma ordinance states “whoever violates or fails to comply with any of the other provisions of this section is guilty of a misdemeanor of the third degree. A separate offense shall be deemed committed each day during or on which a violation or noncompliance occurs or continues.”
For a third-degree misdemeanor charge, a resident could spend up to 30 days behind bars and face fines of up to $250 dollars.
The advocates at last night’s Parma meeting are the same group that successfully helped Lakewood overturn their pit bull ban, instead changing the ordinance to judge all dogs equally, rather than target by breed.
However, the advocates did not attend unopposed. Impassioned speakers at the meeting included Carol Miller, a survivor of a pit bull attack, who urged city council to keep the law as written.
Currently, roughly 21 cities in Ohio have outright pit bull bans, many in the Cincinnati area. Other than Parma, cities with bans in Northeast Ohio include Warrensville Heights and Garfield Heights.
No decision was made by city council on Monday and the opinions were only made during the public comment period.
This article appears in Sep 12-18, 2018.
Ban the people who abuse pit bulls . Trash bags with dead dogs, all of them pit bulls, are routinely found in Cleveland. They are abandoned by those who participate in illegal dog fighting rings.
People people are bizarre. Can Parma allow pitbulls but ban pitbull people?
Carol miller has a lot of lies, to include being part of an organization that she is a board member of, that sided with white nationalists to push her agenda. Her “attack” was even verified by a doctor that she was not attacked, but had abrasions. anyone looking at carol as a hero needs to do their due diligent research. Dogsbite(.)org is a fake website with fake information.
So this group is going from city to city telling these people what laws they should have even when they don’t live there?
There’s a reason that a group is advocating for these animals in communities that don’t already have them.
These are dangerous beasts all to often owned by people of low intellect whoare so low class that they have nothing to lose and hence have no fear of a lawsuit. The owners need to be sent to prison.
I agree that its time to revisit the pit bull ban law. Identifying all pit bulls as being akin to a shark or lion is excessive. I believe every dog should be given a chance to succeed, and if that dog is found to be dangerous then the appropriate action should be taken. Labeling all pit bulls and banning them outright is much too broad of a discrimination and I support Parmas decision to revisit such an outdated ordinance.
Hillary Bayne crawl back under your bridge you victim hating pit hag.
The fact of the matter is that the designation of pit bull is pretty tough to define and as such isn’t particularly helpful nor accurate. Dangerous dogs of any type ought to be removed from neighborhoods. Comments like “dangerous beasts”, “low intellect who are so low class…”, etc. do nothing to advance the narrative and are actually detrimental to reaching a resolution.
There’s lots of information about “pit bulls” out there that is legitimate and helpful. In particular, take a look at the website, http://www.animalfarmfoundation.org ..
I think anyone can own what ever kind of dog they want. However, if any dog bites another one’s dog or an individual the dog owner should be severely punished with fines and extensive jail time. There is no reason for an owner to lose control over their animal. I don’t care if the dog is a one pound mutt – the owner needs to be severely punished with significant fines and jail time. Lets see what happens when an owner gets one or two years year in jail and a $20,000.00+ fine. The problem will go away.
Many pit bulls are vicious animals owned by two-legged animals who deal drugs, and who train them to become attack weapons. It’s like owning a gun with four legs and a tail and fur and teeth. Once they become attack dogs, it’s very hard to get them to behave in any other fashion.
My friends adopted a rescue dog who had been owned by a drug dealer. That dog almost took my hand off. And I wasn’t being hostile or goofing around or trying anything stupid…or even paying attention to him. He grabbed my hand when i got up to take a whiz while we were watching a hockey game, fer chrissake. Somehow, he didn’t bite down…or I’d have lost four fingers.
Many of these animals are trained to get crazy, and their owners should do hard time when caught. Blame the owners, not the damn dogs.
PITBULLS SHOULD NOT BE BANNED THEY ARE PROTECTION DOGS WHAT DO YOU THINK IS GONNA HAPPEN IF A RANDOM STRANGER COME IN THE HOUSE GIVE THE STRANGER KISSES COMMON SENSE THEY WILL PROTECT THERE OWNERS