Pet Hassle Comes Home to Roost

In Jose Sanchez’s Santa Ana neighborhood, he says, there are horses, goats, ducks and chickens--and plenty of roosters.

So why, Sanchez wants to know, is the city of Santa Ana picking on Travis, Sanchez’s 8-year-old pet rooster, which listens to music with him in his bedroom and sits by his side when he lounges in the back yard?

City officials said the rooster is there in violation of an ordinance against barnyard animals. And on Monday, Central Municipal Judge Gary P. Ryan found Sanchez guilty of four counts of violating the 1984 city code.

The bottom line is that Travis has to go.

Technically, the 26-year-old Sanchez could go to jail, but Santa Ana Deputy City Atty. Francois L. Rhemrev said his only interest is seeing that Sanchez gets rid of the rooster.

But is that going to happen?

Before his court appearance, Sanchez vowed he would go to jail before he would give up his pet.

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On Monday, he refused to discuss the issue after the judge’s ruling, but in court he testified, “There is no way I could get rid of him.” Sanchez said he was given the rooster--which he described as “half Rhode Island red and half something else”--when it was so young he did not even know its sex.

Sanchez’s troubles began in early 1987, when a close neighbor complained that Travis’ crowing at 2 a.m. made it difficult to sleep.

Sanchez admitted that Travis “crows whenever he feels like it,” and that sometimes occurs in the early morning hours.

But Sanchez also made some points in his defense.

For one, none of his neighbors brought their complaints to him. Also, he said, he has plenty of chickens too, and they make more noise than Travis. And there are hundreds of roosters in the neighborhood, he said.

“I could never figure out why I was being singled out,” he said.

Sanchez’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Linda Van Winkle, asked the court to order that he be exempted from the ordinance, since Sanchez got Travis three years before the city code became law. The judge did not adopt her suggestion, however.

Van Winkle was more pointed in her criticism of the city of Santa Ana.

What about Stormer?

What about Stormer? she wanted to know. Stormer, a 10-pound white guard goose that was a family pet in Huntington Beach, was kept in violation of a city code section, too. Instead, Huntington Beach officials modified the city code so that Stormer could stay at home, Van Winkle noted.

But Judge Ryan responded, “I am a court; I am not a city council.”

Van Winkle also raised the issue of racial discrimination. It appeared to her that the city was discriminating against “Mexican neighborhoods.”

Rhemrev called that accusation “totally fallacious,” pointing out that the complaints came from residents in Sanchez’s own neighborhood.

He added that Sanchez was not singled out. Rhemrev said that others have been cited but that in their cases, the issue was resolved when they got rid of animals kept in violation of the code.

The judge set Sanchez’s sentencing for Sept. 23, telling Van Winkle that might give her client time to solve the problem with the city.

Sanchez, a burly man who is a part-time construction worker, left the courtroom angry. When asked for comment on the judge’s ruling, he responded, “No way, man.”