Aurora voters to determine fate of city pit-bull ban — again

AURORA | Pit bulls — meaning dogs, not politicians — will be on Aurora’s ballot this election cycle.

City voters will be asked to weigh in on whether to allow the breed, along with American Staffordshires and Staffordshire Bull terriers, back to live in Aurora after an official 16-year exile.

For those recalling that the Aurora City Council already removed these breeds from the banned animal list in Aurora, you’re right. This time, voters are being asked to allow the dogs back, legally.

November’s ballot issue follows years of municipal indecision about dogs perceived by some critics as too aggressive and unsafe for city residency.

Here’s a brief history:

Aurora’s City Council originally passed an ordinance in 2005 that established a ban on pit bulls and several other dog breeds considered by some officials as overly aggressive. 

The Council in 2011 modified that ban by reducing the number of breeds it outlawed down to the three mentioned above.

Three years later, in 2014, council members voted to place an advisory referendum before the people of Aurora about whether to repeal the breed ban. Voters rejected the repeal by a 2-1 margin, continuing to outlaw pit bulls and the two other breeds. 

The council later ignored that vote, saying it was only advisory. And in 2021, city council passed an ordinance repealing the breed ban at the request of pit bull lovers in the city. 

That decision prompted some Aurorans to legally welcome the breed back into their homes for the first time in 16 years.

Things got more confusing later in 2021 when Aurora resident Matthew Snider sued the city for legislatively lifting the ban. He argued that the no-ban ordinance violated Aurora’s City Charter and undermined the will of voters in 2014. He asserted the city can’t repeal its ban without another referendum vote of the people.

The city, for its part, countered that Snider — a Colorado Center Party candidate who has run, unsuccessfully, for a seat in the state legislature — had no standing to file the lawsuit because he has never been injured by any of the three kinds of terriers. 

The case bounced around the state judicial system, up the Colorado Court of Appeals, then back down to Arapahoe County District Court where a judge in March denied the city’s motion to throw out the case. That decision, which the city is now appealing, forced Aurora in the meantime to scrap its 2021 ordinance repealing the breed ban and left some pit bull owners in limbo.

Mary Sarah Fairweather, the vice president of sheltering at the Dumb Friends League in Denver, said Monday that the nonprofit loves and cares for pit bulls like it does “all our other animals.” She supports the Aurora ballot measure and stands “unequivocally” against breed bans, arguing they stereotype the behavior of certain dogs when those of any breed can be overly aggressive. 

“I don’t think they’re fair to the animals, I don’t think they’re fair to people who love them and are responsible pet owners,” she said. “These bans also force people to make really, really difficult decisions that involve a lot of heartbreak for families that is obviously devastating. … And they push pit bills into cities that don’t have these bans, and clog up those cities’ shelters and other resources.”

Fairweather, in the spirit of full disclosure, admitted to having once raised a beloved pit bull “who got very sick and is no longer with us.” She lives in Denver, where voters lifted that city’s pit bull ban in 2020 but imposed specific conditions to own the breed.

“If I had a landlord here in Denver who would allow me to have one, I would get another in a heartbeat,” she said.

The clerk’s office has not yet determined the number of the ballot issue.