Proposed Atlantic Beach, Florida Ordinance 95-18-115 adds a new wrinkle in the pet shop ban continuum that directly impacts small noncommercial breeders and is scheduled for a public hearing and final reading on March 12, 2018. The goal of the pet shop ban movement is to eliminate local links in the retail pet supply chain in the misguided belief this will shut down

large,substandard commercial breeders. Sometimes, legislators add hobby breeder provisions to pet shop ban ordinances. These provisions can be problematic, as with this draft ordinance, when the necessary subject matter expertise is unavailable. In this case, the problems multiply as the drafters struggle to define and prohibit "pet mills," but only succeed in putting legitimate breeders at risk of being classified as such.

In Ordinance 95-18-115, hobby breeders would include anyone who "causes or allows the breeding or studding of a dog or cat resulting in no more than a total of one litter per adult female animal per calendar year whether or not the animals in such litter are offered for sale or other transfer from the premises on which they were bred." Excluded are breeders selling to retail stores. As defined, hobby breeder includes someone owning only intact males that are occasionally bred to females owned by another person. However, the owners of the males may have no control over the one litter per calendar year requirement. The calendar year requirement also ignores the basics of the feline reproduction system and that there are situations where veterinarians recommend back-to-back litters to preserve the health of the female. This could happen within a single calendar year. Furthermore, the definition ignores the fact that not all litters are equal. Some dogs and cats routinely have large litters while others typically have small litters, thereby resulting in disparate treatment of hobby breeders. Another issue with this definition of hobby breeder is the use of the term "bred" instead of born.

The pet mill definition introduces additional problems for fanciers, including a failure to discriminate between legitimate breeders and those with substandard facilities or practices. As defined in the proposed ordinance, a pet mill is:

"a facility where pets are bredfor the purpose of selling them and where any two of the following conditions are found to exist:

Under this definition, many combinations of two criteria could apply to hobby breeders. Two litters could exceed the 20 offspring criteria for cats and dogs prone to large litters. Of necessity, one or both of these litters would have more than eight offspring and thereby meeting criteria g. Criteria d and e interfere with a decision that should be between the breeder and their veterinarian. Furthermore, being bred is not the equivalent of conceiving and, as mentioned above, there are times when veterinarians recommend back-to-back pregnancies. The definition also fails to recognize that Florida state law has consumer protection laws for the pet buying public. Criteria c would require a non-commercial hobby breeder exceed the requirements of those consumer protection laws. The definition further imposes health testing on breeders without identifying who is qualified to determine what testing is appropriate for each breed. Under this definition, many hobby breeders will be categorized as pet mills.