Bentonville Strong-Arms Homeless Animals

After doing a little digging, some more information has surfaced about the Bentonville pet ordinances, and the code enforcement officers. Allegedly, several rescue groups who have attempted to have adoption events in Bentonville have been thwarted by code enforcement officers, even though they are supposed to be exempt:

"according to the ordinance Sec. 601.5(c)F Exemptions that states "Temporary sales to benefit non-profit organizations and conducted on private property. Such sales shall be conducted no longer than five consecutive days." The gentleman in charge of the code enforcement officers (Marvin Saunders) was directed to let the code enforcement officers be aware of this exemption. The regulation states "Any person claiming to be legally exempt from the regulations set forth herein, or from the payment of a permit fee, shall cite to the community Development Director the statute or other legal authority under which exemption is claimed and shall present proof of qualification of such exemption."

Despite city officials going on record with this, they seem to continue to target rescue and shelter adoption events. This doesn't make much sense to me. I will also concede that that I have only heard one side of the story, but even if I slide it towards the city some to account for their side, it doesn't paint a very pretty picture for the city of Bentonville Code Enforcement.

Why would the city need or want to attempt to prevent adoption events? It's not like these folks are making any money off of this - most volunteer at the rescue or shelter for free.

It's not like the shelters are making any money off of these either - every one that I know operates in the red as it is, and without donations of food, supplies, money, and time, they wouldn't even be here. Without these adoption events, building community awareness is difficult, and whats the alternative?

OK, so maybe the headline was a little exaggerated, but it's not too far of a leap to think that preventing sucessful adoption events is only hurting the homeless pets that need to be found - and whats the sense in that? Pets that don't get adopted - get euthanized. By preventing pet adoptions, they are indirectly contributing to the homeless pet epidemic. Bentonville outsources its animal shelter to Rogers, and it would seem they don't really want adoption events happening within their city limits - do they think that if they just ignore it, the problem will go away?

As far as what rescues can do to help with this at future events, take with you your 501c3 paperwork to the event, so that you can prove you are a non-profit, and you are supposed to also alert the code enforcement office, so that they can alert the on-duty officer that your event is taking place. Questions may be sent to srushing@bentonvillear.com. I'm only interested in the truth, so if you have some, comment or email me. I would love to hear from the other side.