The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Dogs will still have to be under “conditioned and immediate” control
The next time you pull up to one of the many backcountry access spots along a county road, swing open your car door and watch your dog excitedly blast off into the wide open space, remember that Gunnison County has a leash law.
According to a county ordinance passed in 2002 regarding the “control and licensing” of dogs, the term control is defined as “firm physical attachment to a secured restraint…” and that didn’t sit well with several members of the public at a work session Tuesday, November 9. So the commissioners agreed to take a fresh look at what it means to control a dog in the county.
Sheriff-elect Rick Besecker, who leads the officers who would have to enforce the ordinance, said simply, “I view that as an impossible task. By definition, which is subjective, the public may view a violation and want our response and we may not always respond because we don’t have the personnel or ability to house the animals.”
While a county ordinance addressing vicious dogs was adopted in the 1980s and another ordinance regarding the control of a dog passed in 1992, the issue of a countywide leash law got its start in Crested Butte South.
County Attorney David Baumgarten explained that an idea had been hatched in what was then the unincorporated county to enforce a law requiring the “physical attachment” to your pet, but the issue of dogs at large proved to be a broader issue.
The 2002 ordinance says that the Board of County Commissioners “determined that in the interests of promoting the health, safety, and welfare of the public, certain changes to existing regulations are in order.”
Two residents of the Island Acres subdivision complained of a neighbor who had improperly, and incorrectly, summoned the ordinance as a threat against having stray dogs run onto his lawn. The neighbor allegedly used the law as a justification for harming the dog if the trespass continued.
“Apparently there are some people out there that are using this leash law for a make my day law for pets and that shouldn’t be the case,” commissioner Paula Swenson said.
Besecker assured the residents that their neighbor had no right to make such threats and said there were state statutes to deal with that. But the issue of an often-misinterpreted law on the books left Swenson wondering if it was worth having the law at all.
Gunnison City manager Ken Coleman spoke up as a recreationalist who often encounters dogs in rural parts of the county and his sentiment was to match the ordinance to the recreational, mostly dog-loving culture of the county.
“People’s expectations are that [an off-leash dog] is something that is acceptable and not having to have your dog on a ten foot leash,” he said. “I’ve rarely had an issue with pets at large. You have to think about lifestyle, what the citizenry feels is normal and the burden that will be placed on the staff.”
Commissioner Hap Channell thought the county needed to loosen the rules a little “for a reality check” but wasn’t sure about removing the law altogether. And commissioner Jim Starr was at the opposite end, seeing the need for a law on the books to protect people from putting up with roaming dogs.
Together, the commissioners leaned toward allowing dogs in the county to be off-leash as long as they are under “conditioned and immediate” control but keeping the leash law on the books. The county attorney said he would draft an ordinance for the commissioners to consider.
