The City Council voted unanimously to allow commercial pet boarding kennels inside the city. The kennels had previously been banned. An earlier effort to reverse the ban some ten years ago failed. The kennels will have to sit at least 200 feet from residential areas. They may be placed in commercial or industrial areas.
I generally support the ordinance change. It is unfortunate that it took the city this long to enact it. But there's a comparison here that intrigues me. There is another longstanding city ordinance that came up for review not long ago. It too involved blocking certain types of businesses from operating within the city. But that ordinance was upheld, while the kennel ordinance was undone.
The other ordinance, of course, is our city's multiplex theater ban, which prevents theaters with more than six screens from being built within the city. The effect has been to grant a virtual monopoly to Douglas Theaters on first-run movie theaters.
In both situations, current business owners opposed a change to city policy on the grounds that it would be unfair. The existing businesses had had to comply with certain rules, and new businesses should have to comply with those rules as well or they would have an unjust competitive advantage. In the case of the theaters, the argument worked. Lincoln's anachronistic policy stands. On the matter of commercial kennels, however, the argument did not prove persuasive to even a single member of the City Council.
I wonder what the difference is? Speculate away. Or if you prefer, tell me why my comparison stinks.
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I think the comparison is fair. And increasing the number of theaters in town doesn’t have the potential for more unwanted dog feces in my yard and urine killing my shrubery. Maybe if the Douglas Theatre people owned all the current doggie businesses around, this too would have stayed on the books as-is. Just sayin’....
I think the key is that current kennels are outside of Lincoln and the council has no reason to protect businesses in the outlying communities. The theaters are already in town and the council was protecting them from outsiders.
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