It nearly slid through unnoticed.
Had vigilant lobbyists for animal welfare groups not spotted it, a provision overturning local bans on the sale of dogs bred in industrial-scale facilities may have sailed through the Florida legislature as a seemingly innocuous attachment to a tax bill. And it still might.
The Florida House of Representatives' Appropriations subcommittee passed the tax measure on Feb. 22. Yet it took a few days to realize what implications the small, bland phrase tacked on late in the process could have for recent strides on animal welfare — and home rule.
Nearly 60 cities and counties in Florida have passed ordinances barring pet stores from selling animals bred at facilities critics call puppy mills. St. Petersburg is one of these.
The idea is to encourage adoption of homeless or abandoned animals in need of a home, or at least ones from reputable breeders who ensure health and comfort for the animals. There have been numerous cases of pets purchased from stores that source from puppy mills growing sick and even dying, potentially as a result of conditions at the site where they were born.
It's something for which consumers have time and again expressed demand, said Lindsay Larrin, a staff attorney with the Animal Legal Defense Fund.
“I think the pet store bans that have been enacted in a lot of jurisdictions in Florida are put in place because consumers don't want to buy from these sort of establishments, they don't want pet stores in their towns and they're sort of speaking through their local legislatures, saying 'we don't want this. We don't want puppy mill dogs in our town,'” she said.
Hillsborough County passed a similar ordinance, though it's looser in that it allows pet stores to sell animals from large-scale breeding facilities if they're USDA-approved.
Yet powerful industry lobbyists seem to have once again managed to wield their influence on lawmakers against local governments, just as they have done on local minimum wages, local vacation rental policy, and (although recently blocked by a court) local bans on styrofoam containers and plastic shopping bags.
“The pattern is very clear,” said former St. Petersburg City Councilman Karl Nurse, who sponsored that city's ordinance, in a text message to CL. “Anytime a community makes a decision that offends a powerful special interest group, they run to the legislature to overrule the community. Even puppies are not safe when the special interests make the legislature jump.”
The amendment's language doesn't even mention puppy mills or pet stores. Instead, it in most cases prohibits cities and counties from banning "the sale or offering for sale of tangible personal property subject to the tax imposed by (state law) which may be lawfully sold in this state."
And in the eyes of the law, at the moment, dogs, cats, chinchillas, birds and bunnies are all considered "personal property" subject to state sales tax.
Local leaders have already expressed confusion over what the bill would mean for their ability to regulate adult businesses or pass local bans on new, unregulated substances (a la bath salts) when the legislature is not in session.
Groups like the Florida Retail Federation back the bill because they believe retailers (if you really think your family dog is a commodity) shouldn't be subject to local regulations if what they're selling is legal.
Leading the charge against bans on pet stores that source animals from puppy mills and similar facilities are retailers like Petland, which has stores in Largo, Bradenton, Sarasota and other cities. Petland representatives did not return a request for comment by deadline, but in the past, executives have said local bans are unnecessary because they only source animals from USDA-certified facilities.
Larrin said that's not exactly reassuring.
“Just because a place is licensed by the USDA doesn't mean very much, unfortunately. There is such a very bare minimum of standards of welfare that are established by the USDA to begin with. And the other problem is that the USDA is not necessarily regulating even their bare minimum standards people believe or perceive what that certified quality would imply."
She said inspections of these breeding facilities are very rare, and that consequences for violating USDA regulations are scant.
Animal welfare advocates say the onus is now on the Florida Senate, given the likelihood of the bill passing the house. They encourage Floridians to contact their state senators with concerns about the law.
"Florida residents have made it clear that they do not support the cruelty of puppy mills, yet the state legislature is poised to throw its support behind that industry and bring puppy mill sales back into the very communities that have taken steps to eliminate them," said Elizabeth Oreck, national organizer of puppy mill initiatives for the group Best Friends Animal Society. "We believe this would be a huge step in the wrong direction for Florida."
This article appears in Mar 1-8, 2018.