San Francisco Anti-Dog Policies

San Francisco, under Newsom's leadership, is notorious for its anti dog policies. After San Francisco implemented its ordinance targeting any dog that looks remotely like a Pit Bull (not just Pit Bulls), a woman named Turanesha was evicted from an apartment she lived in for over 20 years because she had a 9 year old Pit Bull looking service dog. Turanesha lived in that apartment with her ailing grandmother, and her Pit Bull was neutered. That did not stop the eviction. The reason the landlord gave -- if San Francisco is targeting all these dogs, then they pose too much of a liability. It didn't matter that Turanesha's dog may or may not have been a Pit Bull. It didn't matter that the dog had been there for over 9 years without a problem. It didn't even matter to the landlord that the dog was Turanesha's service dog or that, by evicting Turanesha, the landlord was also evicting her ailing grandmother. In response to this incident, all San Francisco authorities could say was such a dog shouldn't be a service dog.

In addition, in his task force report drafted at Newsom's behest (and available online at http://www.chako.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=21).

then Animal Control Director Carl Friedman advocated an all out breed ban and pointed to Denver as a "best practice" and also advocated for selective enforcement of leash laws (i.e., only ticketing some people with off leash dogs but letting others slide—in our view, that is called "profiling"). Friedman also stated that the list of "targeted" dog breeds would no doubt expand over time to include many different breeds of dogs.

For more information on these policies, visit http://www.chako.org/california.html.