Owner Ready to Be Cooped Up Rather Than Muffle Rooster

An Agoura Hills woman intends to cry fowl today when she appears in Malibu Municipal Court on a charge of maintaining a noise nuisance--a pet rooster named Sir Lancelot that an angry neighbor accuses of ruining her sleep.

“I don’t feel it’s fair,” Mary Lewis, 52, said Wednesday of the charge against her. If convicted, she could be sentenced to a maximum $1,000 fine and six months in jail.

“It has become point of honor,” she said of the case. If found guilty, “I’ll go to jail.”

Lewis is charged with violating an Agoura Hills noise ordinance, said her attorney and sister-in-law, Ruth Lewis.

City officials could not be reached for comment on why criminal proceedings were initiated against Lewis, an Agoura Hills resident since 1975 who has kept chickens for years.

The attorney said the trouble started about a year ago when a neighbor complained that Sir Lancelot was keeping her up at night with his crowing.

The neighbor said she was forced to wear earplugs to sleep and kept her windows closed and drapes drawn even on hot summer nights to block out the noise, Mary Lewis said.

She conceded that Sir Lancelot “does crow at dawn; there’s no two ways about that.” But she said that the neighbor is overly sensitive and that other neighbors have not complained about the bird. The neighbor could not be reached for comment.

Sir Lancelot holds sentimental value, Mary Lewis said. Her husband, Randy, who died in February, 1987, was given the bird by a friend on Father’s Day, 1984.

During a telephone interview with Mary Lewis, Sir Lancelot could be heard crowing in the background. Repeated visits by reporters Wednesday excited the bird, she said.

“He’ll probably crow all night now.”