Wooster Ohio unanimously repeals breed ban

At the April 15th City Council meeting in Wooster Ohio, the council voted unanimously to repeal their 13 year old ban on pit bull type dogs.

Initially, officials in Wooster were going to let the repeal go for the full three votes that is standard for legislation according to their charter.

Instead, the council suspended the rules and decided to make tonight the night Wooster becomes breed neutral.

The head of the Laws and Ordinances committee, Mrs. Knapic, who was the official standing behind the repeal, said that since there had been media coverage on this issue, and she had not one letter, email, or phone call opposing the proposed breed neutral ordinance, she was in favor of suspending the rules and doing a final vote. All members of council concurred and subsequently voted to repeal the breed discriminatory law and, at the same time, approve a strong breed neutral law.

According to our good friend Robin, who has been putting in a lot of work on this, there were many people there tonight to support the change, from various canine professionals, to an official from a neighboring town. All attending wore a sticker to show a quiet solidarity on the issue. The Chief of the Wooster Police Department also spoke in favor of the change to breed neutral, saying the breed discriminatory law was unenforceable.

Congratulations to everyone who has been working so hard on getting Wooster’s law repealed and thank you to Wooster officials for deciding to go breed neutral.

Thank you, Robin, for sharing good the news.