Dog dispute spotlights law with no teeth
Thursday, November 15, 2007
By Edward Hershey The Oregonian

A dog day care has pitted neighbor against neighbor and underscored a St. Bernard-size loophole in city and county regulations.

T.J. Civis, objecting to barking and foul odors, insists the Safe Journey dog-sitting service has no business operating next door to his home in the Brooklyn neighborhood. City code, he says, is clear: Pet facilities must be "at least 25 feet from any building used or capable of being used for human habitation."

But Shawn Ryan, Safe Journey co-owner, says a city official encouraged him and Daniel Lioy to move their business to the Victorian home on Southeast Milwaukie Avenue.

Who's right? Michael Oswald, Multnomah County's director of animal services, says both have a point. "This is not the first time something like this has come up," he says. "Frankly, it's a mess."
At the root of the problem is a 1974 city-county agreement that makes the county animal services director -- Oswald -- responsible for regulating pet centers but unable to enforce Portland code.

The agreement "was written so long ago, nobody knows the logic driving it anymore," says Aaron Johnson, an aide to City Commissioner Randy Leonard. "It doesn't make sense, and it's not working."

The Brooklyn dispute follows one last year in which a Northwest neighbor complained about another dog day care, Dog Day Afternoon. The service ended up moving, leaving the regulatory Catch-22 unresolved.

"Dog Day was a piecemeal, political solution that wasn't done by the book," Johnson says. "We got together and made it happen. We need something more comprehensive to deal with these problems."

Back on Milwaukie Avenue, Civis and Ryan have traded accusations about water theft, illegal tree-cutting, stalking, excessive noise and offensive odor, leading to an order of protection against Civis (since dismissed) and mediation that produced an agreement to keep the shouts down and police out.

The trouble started after Ryan and Lioy met with Suzanne Vara, a small-business liaison with the city's Bureau of Development Services, for help expanding Safe Journey, then based at their home.

After a dozen options fizzled, Ryan says, they came upon the Brooklyn house. "She said, 'It's perfect. Grab it!' And we did." Safe Journey opened there in February.

Civis, a 50-year-old photographer, filmmaker and handyman, has lived on the property next door for 17 years.

"There can be as many as 10 or more barking dogs there at any given time," he wrote in a recent letter to neighbors, with dogs 15 feet outside his bedroom waking him as early as 6 a.m. "During the summer, I could not even leave my windows open when it was hot out because the noise and smell would be overwhelming. The smell was horrible!"

Civis' property is zoned for commercial use, but he says the code on pet centers applies regardless of zoning.

Ryan, meanwhile, calls Safe Journey a model in how it treats pets and people, keeping dogs in a family-style setting without cages, paying livable wages to staff, and "altering our business model to fit the surrounding Brooklyn community."

After conducting two neighborhood surveys, he says, he reduced drop-off and pick-up hours, and began daily round-the-block poop scooping, "even though we know little or none of it is from our dogs."

"Mr. Civis wants it both ways, to enjoy his mixed-use property as he wishes but prevent us from using ours," Ryan, 28, says. "We smell noxious fumes from his blowtorch and see piles of debris on his property. . . . But we are not complaining about him. All this activity is bringing Brooklyn alive. We're part of that, and he's part of that."

So what's next? The city and county plan to form a joint committee to come up with ideas in the coming year. Meanwhile, Johnson says, Leonard will ask the city noise-abatement officer to relieve the county of monitoring barking-dog complaints.

But Oswald isn't too hopeful. Even if the committee gives him authority to enforce city rules, he says, zoning laws often trump other city regulations.

"The bottom line," he says, "is that Mr. Civis is encountering problems that are inherent in the city code."

Portland News: 503-221-8199; portland@news.oregonian.com
©2007 The Oregonian

For more info: www.safejourneypetsitting.com
503-209-0177