By Maria Asimopoulos and Chris Cobb
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writers
The Baltimore County Council voted unanimously Monday in favor of a bill to require commercial kennels to be at least 200 feet away from residential properties.
The bill will go into effect on April 15 and will impact any private and commercial kennels, animal boarding places, and pet shops that are not granted an exception by that date.
Before passing the legislation, the council voted 5-2 to reject an amendment to the bill sponsored by Councilman Izzy Patoka, D-Second District, that would have made the new rule apply retroactively.
Council members said they opposed the amendment because they believed it was aimed at one particular business: Follow My Lead, a dog training facility located in the Greenspring Valley area of Owings Mills. The service is 50 feet away from residential properties.
Council members Tom Quirk, D-First District, Julian E. Jones, D-Fourth District, David Marks, R-Fifth District, Cathy Bevins, D-Sixth District, and Todd K. Crandell, R-Seventh District, all voted against Patoka’s amendment.
Mary Francis Dael and Tiffany Stearns, co-owners of Follow My Lead, defended the facility during a council work session last week. Stearns said that neighbors’ concerns seemed to be about waste disposal and increased traffic in the area, but not about noise from the dogs.
“If this bill goes into effect, then I don’t have enough space east to west,” Stearns said, adding that the proposed new property line restrictions would force the facility to shut down.
During the work session, Bevins said she has a problem changing a law in Baltimore County if it would disrupt a business that had complied with it.
“I believe this legislation has already been formed for existing businesses,” Bevins said last week. “They applied for a permit, got a license, went through special exception, put a fence up, and the owners purchased the property to run this business.”
Quirk, chair of the council, also expressed concern over changing the law because it seemed to be targeting a single facility.
Instead of the amendment that would make the law retroactive, the council adopted an amendment saying that the bill would be implemented prospectively so that Follow My Lead would not be impacted. The amendment met with some resistance from Patoka and Councilman Wade Kach, R-Third District.
“This [bill] simplifies the zoning regulations,” Patoka said. “It says 200 feet of setback, irrespective of zoning classifications. It’s good policy, and I think we should separate the politics from the policy and let the policy go forward. And I think this amendment inserts politics.”
“It does not apply to the kennel in question,” said Kach. “You don’t refer to laws that are in effect unless you make it retroactive, so I don’t see any need for this amendment at all.”
Patoka, Kach, and Marks voted against the amendment to make the bill apply only to future kennels, but the 4-3 vote was still enough to pass it. Despite resistance to the amendment, Patoka and Kach ultimately voted yes on the full bill.
Its passage will fix a discrepancy in the current law that places the 200-foot setback only on private kennels in residential areas. It will now include commercial kennels as well.
The council also voted unanimously in favor of a bill to provide over $1.4 million to county police to reimburse them for emergency spending on new firearms, as well as a bill to allow a bakery that employs over 100 people to continue to operate in an agricultural zone.