MW surveyor
06-26-2011, 09:26 AM
Too good not to copy from another forum :D
The Case of the Forbidden Chickens
Chico, California, famous for Chapter 9.60.030 of the Municipal Code, which prohibits nuclear weapons, now adds another whacked-out regulation about chickens and medical marijuana.
Let me explain.
The City of Chico is the fourth largest employer in Butte County. Such an honor results from many city jobs, one of which is domestic animal regulation.
It seems some friends of ours up in Chico decided upon chickens for their back yard. This was some time ago.
A few of their neighbors learned the obvious advantages of chickens, such as fresh eggs. More chickens moved into the neighborhood. As chickens do, neighboring flocks conversed among themselves.
Thus was born the first ordinance, limiting the number and type of poultry one may keep within the city limits—specifically a small number of chickens. Just chickens.
At the very same time, the very same Chico City Council decided about medical marijuana—how many plants could be grown in what sized yard, how far from a school, and so on. As it just so happens, chickens are quite adept at controlling unwanted weeds in medical marijuana gardens. Another ordinance was passed allowing the grows and the chickens. This is California, you know.
Now, we know that to get eggs, you need chickens. But to get more chickens, you need a rooster. A few moved in, with predictable consequences. A new ordinance was added about the number of roosters per acre per neighborhood per flock—all to limit the early morning wake up calls which bothered the patients' sleep.
People who wanted more chickens had to evade the regulations, so they traded roosters. Rent-A-Rooster began to advertise locally. Immediately there followed a new regulation and a permit process regarding the exploitation of farm animals for profit other than them being eaten. The irony seems excessive somehow.
As it turns out, a person could exploit the living tar out of roosters as long as the permits were properly taken out and the fees paid. Jobs were at stake.
Roosters visited marijuana gardens in order to keep up with the demand both for weed control and for Cacciatore. Somehow the rooster permit bucks and the medicinal Mary Jane money ran afoul of some pimply bean counter in a dingy back room of the City Hall, a faceless key poker behind smoked glass and empty bags of Doritos.
Suddenly residential chickens and roosters became illegal.
What were the hapless medical gardeners to do? They decided to go for another bird type—after all, the ordinance specifically targeted chickens, not other birds.
As luck would have it, Chico rests along the Great Pacific Flyway, the migratory super corridor between the Arctic and South America used by hundreds of bird species. These birds spend some time in and around Chico as they fly by.
One of these species, the Arctic Tern, is even more prolific than chickens, laying four eggs per day instead of two, but it's a trade-off, as the eggs are smaller. They are very quiet, but they eat weeds just like the chickens. So, enterprising growers would sneak down to the resting grounds, out in the rice fields and almond groves, snag a bag full of birds, and sneak back to their enclosed-by-law, medicinal gardens.
Unfortunately, the new birds also ate the young marijuana plants. This prompted growers to erect quarter inch mesh fences around seedlings. Otherwise, there would be no Tern un-stoned.
Peacocks are next. And I'm sure there will be ordinances.
The Case of the Forbidden Chickens
Chico, California, famous for Chapter 9.60.030 of the Municipal Code, which prohibits nuclear weapons, now adds another whacked-out regulation about chickens and medical marijuana.
Let me explain.
The City of Chico is the fourth largest employer in Butte County. Such an honor results from many city jobs, one of which is domestic animal regulation.
It seems some friends of ours up in Chico decided upon chickens for their back yard. This was some time ago.
A few of their neighbors learned the obvious advantages of chickens, such as fresh eggs. More chickens moved into the neighborhood. As chickens do, neighboring flocks conversed among themselves.
Thus was born the first ordinance, limiting the number and type of poultry one may keep within the city limits—specifically a small number of chickens. Just chickens.
At the very same time, the very same Chico City Council decided about medical marijuana—how many plants could be grown in what sized yard, how far from a school, and so on. As it just so happens, chickens are quite adept at controlling unwanted weeds in medical marijuana gardens. Another ordinance was passed allowing the grows and the chickens. This is California, you know.
Now, we know that to get eggs, you need chickens. But to get more chickens, you need a rooster. A few moved in, with predictable consequences. A new ordinance was added about the number of roosters per acre per neighborhood per flock—all to limit the early morning wake up calls which bothered the patients' sleep.
People who wanted more chickens had to evade the regulations, so they traded roosters. Rent-A-Rooster began to advertise locally. Immediately there followed a new regulation and a permit process regarding the exploitation of farm animals for profit other than them being eaten. The irony seems excessive somehow.
As it turns out, a person could exploit the living tar out of roosters as long as the permits were properly taken out and the fees paid. Jobs were at stake.
Roosters visited marijuana gardens in order to keep up with the demand both for weed control and for Cacciatore. Somehow the rooster permit bucks and the medicinal Mary Jane money ran afoul of some pimply bean counter in a dingy back room of the City Hall, a faceless key poker behind smoked glass and empty bags of Doritos.
Suddenly residential chickens and roosters became illegal.
What were the hapless medical gardeners to do? They decided to go for another bird type—after all, the ordinance specifically targeted chickens, not other birds.
As luck would have it, Chico rests along the Great Pacific Flyway, the migratory super corridor between the Arctic and South America used by hundreds of bird species. These birds spend some time in and around Chico as they fly by.
One of these species, the Arctic Tern, is even more prolific than chickens, laying four eggs per day instead of two, but it's a trade-off, as the eggs are smaller. They are very quiet, but they eat weeds just like the chickens. So, enterprising growers would sneak down to the resting grounds, out in the rice fields and almond groves, snag a bag full of birds, and sneak back to their enclosed-by-law, medicinal gardens.
Unfortunately, the new birds also ate the young marijuana plants. This prompted growers to erect quarter inch mesh fences around seedlings. Otherwise, there would be no Tern un-stoned.
Peacocks are next. And I'm sure there will be ordinances.