County bucks CLUCK request

Six members of the public, including an 11-year-old boy, showed up at the start of the Sarasota County Commission meeting Sept. 25 to talk about chickens.

But, commissioners declared too narrow the dialogue about revising a county ordinance to allow for domestic chicken keeping outside of open use zones. The commission eventually voted 4-1 to draft a letter to Citizens Lobbying for Urban Chicken Keeping, or CLUCK, asking it to garner support from neighborhood associations before they can consider changing the current policy.

The city of Sarasota has an ordinance allowing for regulated chicken keeping, but the county zoning ordinance defines keeping poultry as an agricultural use — which restricts the activity to open use-zoned land.

Supporters cited a growing culinary trend and environmental concerns as reasons the county should revise the ordinance. Commissioner Jon Thaxton voiced support for CLUCK’s cause during reports after the morning session, but concerns about changing a policy without hearing from opponents prompted commissioners to table the discussion until more public outreach is achieved.

“I think the sooner we can get the dialogue started, the better,” Commissioner Carolyn Mason said.

Part of the problem, Commissioner Nora Patterson said, is that hearing from the other side of the chicken wire likely wouldn’t happen until domestic poultry starts appearing in more residential backyards — when “the chicken’s out of the box, so to speak.”

“I have experiences with one city that’s absolutely overrun with chickens,” Patterson said. Chickens were once so ubiquitous on the streets of Key West, a “chicken bounty hunter” was hired to control the population in areas where keeping domestic poultry was banned. He quit because, “chickens don’t read maps,” Patterson said.

Thaxton recounted growing up with cats and dogs that were strictly used for killing vermin and other “utilitarian” purposes. It’s incongruent to disallow domestic chicken keeping, while at the same time allowing domestic cats, he said. He said cats have wandered onto his property and killed birds, but he has little recourse.

“I guess I feel like our code-enforcement plate is very full,” Patterson said.

Sarasota County Planning and Development staff earlier this year proposed adding weekend code-enforcement hours, which was sparked in part by noise complaints in Siesta Key Village.

Officers would need to learn a set of parameters for keeping domestic chickens if the ordinance were revised, she said.

“I just don’t think this is a great time to expand our challenges,” Patterson said.