Planners Toss a Porcine Hot Potato to City Council

Elmer, offspring of Beauregard and Prudence of the distinguished Vietnamese potbellied pig family of Piketon, Ohio, and Miss Piggy, born of Batman and Janie, 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 La Habra Heights 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. So, 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. For one thing, 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.

“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.”

Caywood acknowledged there have been some problems between her and the Hartingers in the 12 years they have been neighbors. 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 them and not the council.