The chicks may be on their way back.
Lawrence city commissioners at their Tuesday meeting are set to change a city ordinance that caused a local retailer to shut down its annual “Chick Days Sale,” where customers bought baby chickens and ducks to raise.
Orscheln Farm & Home shut down its chick sale operations in mid-April — two to three weeks earlier than normal — after the city advised the store it was out of compliance with an ordinance passed to regulate the raising of chickens in residential neighborhoods.
The backyard chicken law required that coops for chickens or ducks have at least 10 square feet of space per bird. Orscheln officials said that was feasible for the large number of small chicks they house during the spring-time sale.
The city attorney’s office said the current chicken ordinance didn’t have language that created an exception for commercial enterprises. The ordinance up for consideration at Tuesday’s meeting will allow for businesses such as Orscheln and Tractor Supply Company to sell the young chicks for a limited time.
A memo from city attorney Toni Wheeler said the new ordinance also will make it clear the U.S. Postal Service doesn’t have to comply with the 10 square feet requirement when it housing chicks that are shipped through the mail.
Wheeler, in the memo, said the original ordinance approved in 2009 didn’t foresee the impact it would have on some retailers.
Commissioners will consider the ordinance change as part of their consent agenda. The commission meets at 6:35 p.m. on Tuesday at City Hall.
Comments
cobaltblue 1 year ago
Do you think common sense might have a chance here?
Joe Hyde 1 year ago
Good move by the Commission -- reversing their earlier action after more facts came to light that showed their first vote was made based on erroneous information. A small issue in the Big Picture, true, but this is how you like to see democracy work.
sandrat7 1 year ago
Agreed.
OonlyBonly 1 year ago
A day late and a dollar short commissioners! Should have never been allowed to happen. Shows you what not doing your job or researching the ramifications of your ordinances. I see the City Attorney has chosen to mention one of the areas mentioned in posts about the city's poor handling of this situation but not others. Now all you have to do is find a way to help Orscheln recoop some of the losses caused by this mistake. Oh, not your problem. That's right. Day after day you make decisions affecting the businesses and citizens of Lawrence but you don't have the slightest idea what you're doing!
Pywacket 1 year ago
I totally agree with the sentiments of your post. My only question is whether those responsible for the boneheaded wording of the ordinance, which failed to write in chick sales, is the fault of the current commission or previous office holders. If the latter, I would redirect the criticism to them and simply encourage the present commission to make the appropriate changes.
I'm afraid there's probably no way for Orscheln to recoup (or recoop! haha) their losses this year, but the city owes it to them to ensure they don't incur further losses next year.
Frankie8 1 year ago
Just thought, what happened to all those chicks, after it was determined they couldn't be sold?
togu 1 year ago
I miss the days when Mike was city manager. He would have called this BS and stopped those departments from this show of .....what was it?
consumer1 1 year ago
AMEN!! I agree!
patkindle 1 year ago
if there was any common sense in city hall this would never have been an issue we should be ashamed, we should be very ashamed
KRichards 1 year ago
How can we even go on living?
bartstop 1 year ago
Dang, I thought this article was going to be about prostitution. I was ready to buy a really hot chic.
somedude20 1 year ago
I just rent out chicks. Hello, my name is Gator and Gator wants his money from his chicks. Chicks cost Gator money but Gator is going to give you a deal. Act now and rent two chicks and get a third for free. In these tough economic times, Gator knows every penny counts (Gator counts every penny, don't short Gator)
God bless and go America!
The_Big_B 1 year ago
The natural outcome of trying to micromanage the lives of a free people.
Pywacket 1 year ago
Rubbish. It's the natural outcome of failing to consider all ramifications and using intelligent, purposeful language when writing a necessary ordinance.
If they had worded the thing correctly in the first place, they would have included common-sense exemptions for sales of hatchlings by retailers. You are living in a utopian fantasy world if you think that "a free people" means everyone should just do as they please without laws.
If they had simply legalized urban livestock and let the "free people" determine what animals could be kept in town, how many, and how they should be housed and maintained, there would soon be animals kept in deplorable, crowded, filthy pens and a stench blanketing entire neighborhoods. Roosters would be shooting off their mouths at all hours and poorly kept flocks would run loose and crap wherever they pleased. There have to be regulations.
Some people could self regulate without many laws. Too many others cannot.--and prove that every day.
none2 1 year ago
Hogwash. (Or more appropriately Fowl wash.)
We do not need to continually write laws to live in a civilized society. If you have a problem with someone else, why not try to resolve it before calling the control police?
Continually writing laws to regulate minutia is simply a way of perpetuating the continual growth of government. Personally, I'd rather listen to a rooster crow then put up with another government bureaucrat living off the system. The rooster just does its business, crows, and messes hens, and fights with other roosters. The bureaucrat wants a salary; wants health insurance, retirement, cost of living wages; wants a growing budget; wants additional staff, and most of all wants to make sure to tell you how to run your life. You may not like either one, but with the rooster he only lives a few years and provides food. The bureaucrat's department exists into perpetuity.
If you want to have your taxes raised for expanded government so that they can tell you how to conduct yourself each and every moment then from cradle to grave then you are clearly in the minority. (Perhaps you are not a minority in Lawrence as here there is always someone else who should pick up the tab -- federal government, state government, rich people...)
If I had a neighbor whose chicken(s) were causing a problem, I'd talk to that neighbor directly, instead of crying fowl and running to the chicken police.
The_Big_B 1 year ago
... (what He said)
The_Big_B 1 year ago
... (or She).
snap_pop_no_crackle 1 year ago
peep
footnote2 1 year ago
"Orscheln officials said that was feasible for the large number of small chicks they house during the spring-time sale."
I think Orscheln officials actually said that (the large space for each chicken) was NOT feasible for the large number of small chicks . . . The current space requirement seems to be the problem for Orscheln and its young poultry.
DougCounty 1 year ago
Clarification: chicks need to be huddled together and kept warm lest they get hypothermia and die. They don't need nearly the space that an adult chicken needs and indeed would die if given 10 square feet per chick.
weiser 1 year ago
I think the chicken came before the egg.
emily_litella 1 year ago
Oh My. We'll never be free.
JackMcKee 1 year ago
The chickens have come home to roost!
blindrabbit 1 year ago
Best answer to the problem, get rid of the Commission form! Elect a mayor directly reportable to the electorate. If they mess up it will be reflected in their job performance and their electibility
beatnik 1 year ago
we have wasted a lot of time and money to solve a problem that wasn't a problem until the commission made it one.
lepchun 1 year ago
Agree with beatnik
none2 1 year ago
As I mentioned in another post, I was told by a Tractor Supply employee that this screwed up law also affected their store. While they are not in the city limits, she said that they are required to follow the same city ordinances.
oneeye_wilbur 1 year ago
The commission will approve the change but that action does not rectify the incompetence in Planning and Development. That is where the problem started. Orscheln went through that department with site plans and a bunch of other b.s.
The staff in McCullough's office is ready for a shakeup and the head honcho as well. Lyn Zollner has turned her office into a real estate office and is running off buyers of property and due to the business of the historic areas.
The commission does not have the guts to do a shakeup, unless it benefits them or a couple of local developers,and they are hardly that, just in name.
jiminkansas 1 year ago
"The backyard chicken law required that coops for chickens or ducks have at least 10 square feet of space per bird. Orscheln officials said that was feasible for the large number of small chicks they house during the spring-time sale."
So, I don't understand what the trouble was if Orscheln said that it WAS feasible, unless of course the article meant to say that Orsheln officials said that WASN"T feasible.
Nevermind
CWGOKU 1 year ago
I don't want to hear a peep out of any of you!
KU_cynic 1 year ago
The Wall Street Journal's "Best of the Web Today" blog by James Taranto provides the LJ-W headline (Lawrence city commission may change law to allow business to sell chicks) and a link to the story with the header:
'The preferred term is "sex workers"
none2 1 year ago
I hope they get it right this time. Did they double check to make sure they don't have some hidden requirement for 10 square feet of space per egg? Imagine buying a dozen eggs if that were the case. Of course if the carton was nice enough you might be able to reuse it as flooring for your house.
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