Weighty Debate Swirls Around Potbellied Pigs : Pets: Their owners had great dreams for Elmer and Miss Piggy. Now the pair are the center of a neighborhood feud.

Elmer, offspring of Beauregard and Prudence of the distinguished Vietnamese potbellied pig family of Piketon, Ohio, and Miss Piggy, born of Batman and Janie, also of Piketon potbellied pig fame, don’t know what a close scrape they had with the law.

Pigs with credentials like these have more important things to worry about than whether their presence in Kathleen and Gerald Hartinger’s home violates county and city ordinances. Unlike ordinary oinkers, Elmer and Miss Piggy spend their valuable time wondering whether the Hartingers have stocked up on Whoppers chocolate malt candy and whether they can beat out the family dogs, cats and chickens to the best place in the yard for a good bask in the sun.

So Elmer and Miss Piggy had no time to ponder the consequences of the La Habra Heights Planning Commission’s lengthy debate on whether they were to be unceremoniously booted from their comfortable home because of their smell.

As it was, the Planning Commission last week passed the problem to the City Council to decide how to handle the two miniature pigs and the raging feud they have caused between the Hartingers and their nearest neighbors.

On April 12, the City Council gets its turn to hear the continuing saga of two small pigs, their pig noises and pig smells, and the neighbors who don’t want them.

Since October, Patricia Caywood and Robert S. Barrios have complained to anyone who will listen that Elmer and Miss Piggy have turned their lovely countryside neighborhood into a stinky and noisy barnyard. Elmer and Miss Piggy, the irritated neighbors say, are not simply house pets--they are the first step in the Hartingers’ ambitious plans to start a pig farm.

The Hartingers said that while at one time they did plan to breed Elmer and Miss Piggy, now it is impossible. First of all, they say, Elmer weighs only 60 pounds and Miss Piggy tips the scale at a whopping 130 pounds, which is big for a pig of Vietnamese origins. And more important, Miss Piggy is dangerously overweight and a pregnancy now would probably kill her. So, Kathleen Hartinger said, she plans to neuter Elmer.

As for the smell, Hartinger said, pigs are pigs, and they smell, but the pen was far enough to keep odors from drifting next door.

“The neighbor is bringing up things that don’t have anything to do with the pigs,” Hartinger said. “She (Caywood) has been finding things wrong with our yard for years. If it’s not pigs, it’s something else. This is like a feud between neighbors.”

Caywood acknowledged that there have been some problems between her and the Hartingers in the 12 years they have been neighbors. “Their lifestyle is real different,” she said. But she said there would not be any trouble if it were not for Elmer and Miss Piggy.

“They are small pigs, but they smell just like big pigs and they make a lot of noise when they get going.”

Some City Council members said if the problem is between neighbors, it should be solved by neighbors and not the City Council.

“It seems like much ado about nothing,” Councilwoman Jean Good said. “It’s unfortunate to spend so much of the city staff’s time and energy on pigs.”

Good and Councilman Gene Beckman both said they could not comment on the pig debate, because the council has not been presented with all the facts. It might be a problem that is out of the council’s jurisdiction, Beckman said.

“The county passed an ordinance in the ‘40s prohibiting swine for public health reasons,” he said. “If these pigs are injurious to public health then the issue is all over.”

Councilwoman Judith Hathaway-Francis said she will not vote on the pig issue because her son raises two pigs at her house for 4-H. The pigs are kept at the house for a few months then taken to the fair, she said.

Hartinger said the whole hullabaloo has been extremely stressful for her family. She said if Elmer and Miss Piggy are banished by city decree, her family will probably move with them.

“It’s kind of a matter of principle,” she said. “It would be sad to have all this taken away because of one neighbor.”