Judge reinstates Aurora pit bull ban, says 2021 city council repeal was ‘without authority’

AURORA | Aurora residents are once again forbidden from owning pit bulls, after a district court judge ruled this week that the Aurora City Council’s decision in 2021 to repeal a ban on the dog breed defied the will of voters.

In an email to the Sentinel, city spokesman Ryan Luby wrote that Aurora has not yet determined what enforcement of the ban might look like, what the ruling means for pit bull owners and whether the city will appeal.

Matt Snider, the Aurora resident and member of the city’s Civil Service Commission who independently filed the lawsuit against the city a few months after the ban was lifted, said the ruling gutted the argument that the former City Council could unilaterally get rid of the legislation that had been upheld by a ballot question in 2014.

“I like dogs, but it wasn’t about dogs,” Snider said “This could have been about car battery recycling, and I still would have done the same thing. … The decision of the voters is, to me, holy ground. You just don’t mess with that, because that is what keeps our democracy going.”

First introduced by the city council in 2005, the pit bull ban survived a 2014 referendum asking voters whether it should be struck down, with roughly two-thirds of Aurorans expressing their desire to continue prohibiting the breed.

Aurora’s City Charter states that a “proposed ordinance adopted or rejected by electoral vote under either the initiative or referendum cannot be revived, repealed, amended or passed except by electoral vote.”

In her ruling granting Snider’s motion for summary judgment against the city, 18th Judicial District Judge Elizabeth Beebe Volz wrote that the language of the charter clearly prevented the council from striking down the ban after residents had voted to keep it.

“The plain language of the City’s Charter and City Code requires that, once an ordinance has been submitted to the voters by way or resolution or referendum, the subject ordinance cannot be revived, repealed, amended or passed except by electoral vote,” she wrote March 26.

“Since the City did not submit the proposed repeal of the pit bull ban to another vote, its enactment of an ordinance contrary to the vote of the resolution proposing repeal was without authority and therefore is void.”

Volz previously found that Snider wasn’t allowed to sue the city because he failed to prove that he was personally harmed by the council’s decision to repeal the ban. After Volz tossed the case, Snider appealed, and early last year, the Colorado Court of Appeals found in Snider’s favor, returning the case to district court.

When Snider’s case was allowed to proceed, attorneys representing the City of Aurora argued that the 2014 referendum was only “advisory,” since council members would still have had to sign off on the ordinance lifting the ban if the idea of doing so had earned the support of voters.

Snider said attorneys representing the city had “fought me every step of the way,” contributing to the nearly three-year duration of the case. He also said he does not blame the current council for the choices made in 2021 and was hopeful that the group will accept the ruling of the court.

Mayor Mike Coffman wrote in an email to the Sentinel that he was unsure how the council would respond to the reinstatement of the ban but mentioned how he opposed the 2021 repeal and proposed sending the question back to voters at the time, an idea that a majority of that council rejected.

“My proposal copied what the Denver City Council had sent to the voters that I thought was a more balanced (approach) than the language used in Aurora’s previous referendum,” Coffman said. “I’ve not had any discussions yet with council members since the decision came down.”

Councilmember Alison Coombs, too, wrote in an email that she wasn’t aware of any discussions among council members about how the city should respond.