SAUGUS — The Board of Health has focused on animal regulations in the Town, creating new sections to Article 10 – Keeping of animals, hoping to strengthen the section.
“In looking through some of our regulations, one of the major standouts that I did see when we were redrafting was just that Article 10 didn’t have any real enforcement actions in the actual language in the regulation itself,” Director of Public Health John Fralick said.
He continued that the regulations were just too unclear and “lacked the teeth” needed for enforcement.
One of the biggest changes will be the town-wide banning of roosters. The possible new regulation, Section 4 – Nuisance Animals, states, “Roosters shall not be permitted within Town limits,” and “Any animals deemed to be a nuisance or detrimental to the health and well-being of the public shall be ordered removed by the Saugus Board of Health.”
“We’ve indicated that they’re nuisance animals, and there’s not a real way to regulate the population of chickens,” Fralick said. He also mentioned that many of the surrounding towns and cities followed this rule.
One resident spoke up, asking, “How do you define a nuisance?”
Fralick answered that a nuisance included an animal making a lot of noise or causing a bad odor, to which the man asked why dogs wouldn’t be considered a nuisance.
“If a dog is barking in your neighborhood, we also have an animal control officer, and you can make a complaint,” Chair Maria Tamagna said.
She continued that for roosters, it can be a nuisance when they cause the chicken population to go up, which would be an issue as there is a cap on how many chickens one can have on the property.
“Say there is a nuisance dog barking all of the time. You have teeth to be able to call the animal control officer,” Fralick added.
He said there are bans for roosters all across the state due to them being nuisances. He also touched on the fact that with the rising chicken population, there could be more risks of avian flu.
“We’re just trying to cut down on that. We’re not trying to target any specific animal. We’ve just had enough instances here where we’re trying to just make sure we have some teeth to tell them they’d have to get rid of the rooster,” Fralick said.
Another regulation that is looking to be added is pest control. Section 5 states, “Permit holders will be required at all times to employ reasonable pest control methods so as not to create sufficient harborage and/or food sources for rodents and insects.”
This is in response to the number of complaints the Town has received about rodents.
“You look at the number of complaints that we get regarding rodents, and it’s ultimately something that we look at and go, ‘Well, okay, there’s a chicken coop the next street over. There’s a chicken coop a quarter mile away down the street,” Fralick said.
The same resident commented on how expensive pest control can be. Still, Fralick assured him and everyone else that the board wasn’t talking about having an expensive company do the pest control and that residents could look into all options.
“There’s a reason we say reasonable,” he said.
One thing mentioned was that pens and enclosures can’t be located within 150 feet of a public or private way.
The same resident said, “Let me play devil’s advocate for a minute. You can have dogs in your house. You can have them in your bed. They don’t have to be 150 feet away. If somebody wants to have a little goat instead, it has to be 150 feet? Is the goat any dirtier than the dog?”
Public Health Nurse Teresa Riley-Singh responded by saying that there has to be some sort of regulation, especially for animals who spend most of the day and overnight outside, as they are exposed to much more.
“We’re not prejudiced against roosters… What we’re trying to do is model what other towns and cities have done with roosters, chickens and whatnot,” Tamaga said.
Another resident spoke up as well in reference to the rooster discussion, saying, “Why don’t you address these violators (rooster owners)? You said you had two (complaints) a year of something like that… Why don’t you deal with them?”
He continued asking what the problem was when it came to roosters and if they were violating the noise ordinance in town. “What is the violation that they have offended?” he asked.
Fralick said the main issue is that the town does not have a way to combat the nuisance right now and that the amendments to Article 10 were meant to respond to this.
The resident pulled out a paper showing the board a rooster collar and brought it up to them as an example of another way to handle the situation.
“This is something you might want to see. They sell readily available rooster collars to keep down the crow,” he said.
A motion was made to open up public comment from Monday to April 7, the date of the next Board of Health meeting. Residents can submit questions and concerns about the new amendments to Fralick at [email protected]. These will be addressed at the next meeting, where a vote on the amendments will most likely occur.
