SF Considers Ban On Selling Pets

Last night San Francisco held a meeting to consider what would be the nation’s first blanket ban on the selling of any animals as pets.

That includes dogs, cats, hamsters, mice, rats, chinchillas, guinea pigs, birds, snakes, lizards and nearly every other critter, or, as the commission calls them, companion animals. “People buy small animals all the time as an impulse buy, don’t know what they’re getting into, and the animals end up at the shelter and often are euthanized,” said commission Chairwoman Sally Stephens. “That’s what we’d like to stop.” San Francisco residents who want a pet would have to go to another city, adopt one from a shelter or rescue group, or find one through the classifieds. The Board of Supervisors would have final say on the matter. But not before pet store owners unleash a cacophony of howling, squeaking and squawking. “It’s terrible. A pet store that can’t sell pets? It’s ridiculous,” said John Chan, manager of Pet Central on Broadway, which has been in business 30 years. “We’d have to close.”

I have a feeling that PETA has their paws in this somehow.