It’s a Chicken Joke to Some but Those Involved Aren’t Laughing

In the sometimes mundane world of zoning code enforcement there is nothing like a little chicken law to lighten moods and inspire a few cheap puns.

So when Los Angeles County officials announced this month that they intend not only to ban “adult male chickens” (read it as roosters) from many neighborhoods, but also to limit to six the number of hens per household, the bromides began to fly.

Someone suggested that neighbors had cried fowl over noisy chickens. It was said county officials would ruffle a few feathers with this one. And one wag concluded that chicken owners were sure to squawk at this half-baked idea.

But to some, chickens are no laughing matter.

In many of the unincorporated areas where the law would be enforced, homeowners blame sleepless nights and frazzled nerves on roosters that crow at all hours. They say even relatively hushed hens can fill the air with unpleasant odors.

“Zoning problems are not as funny when you live next door to them,” said John Calas, head of zoning enforcement for the county.

Neighbors’ complaints about chickens are probably as old as the first cock’s crow, but county planners said the problem has grown as housing tracts have encroached on former farming districts and as immigrants from Mexico and Central America bring chickens to neighborhoods that are more familiar with dogs. Animal control officers said the immigrants often keep the birds for pets, food or entertainment--namely cock fighting, which is already banned by state law.

No one keeps tabs, but the manager of the county’s Carson animal shelter estimated that crowing complaints have increased by 20% in recent years.

Chicken owners protest that the county ordinance--the subject of a public hearing Aug. 9 before the County Regional Planning Commission--is a gross overreaction to a problem that should be handled with existing nuisance laws. They say the proposed ban on roosters--covering all residential neighborhoods and agricultural lots of less than an acre--would kill a hobby they have enjoyed for years.

The ban eventually would have to be approved by the County Board of Supervisors.

“We are panicking,” said Chris Maddalena of Azusa, an amateur chicken-breeder who lavishes attention on his black minorcas and white leghorns the way some people dote on their poodles. “This ordinance would devastate me and everyone in our neighborhood.”

Most cities already have ordinances that limit or prohibit barnyard animals in residential zones. Carson, Pasadena and Torrance, for instance, ban chickens, regardless of sex. In the city of Los Angeles, homeowners can keep an unlimited number of chickens as pets, but not for commercial purposes.

But in unincorporated areas of the county--from parts of the Antelope Valley to Rowland Heights and from Malibu to Lennox--the rules on chickens are not as clear.

Many residential areas in the unincorporated county are zoned for agriculture, and restrictions on the location of chicken coops apply only to commercial poultry operations, Calas said. Zoning laws are usually written to outline what is permitted, and since the county’s residential codes are silent on chickens, that should mean they are prohibited, Calas said.

But prosecutors have told county officials they would be more comfortable going to court armed with an outright rooster ban, rather than having to produce evidence that the birds are disturbing the peace, said John Orr, an assistant county planner.

Hence the chicken law, which would permit homeowners to keep a maximum of six hens and order that the birds be kept in pens at least 35 feet away from homes. Roosters would be banned, county officials said, because they make most of the racket.

Without a law banning the birds, chicken opponents have been forced to depend on existing nuisance laws--sometimes snapping photos, making secret recordings and logging the times that roosters crow to persuade authorities that the birds are disturbing the peace.

Chicken owners like Maddalena said the proposal flies in the face of tradition in neighborhoods like his, where nearly everyone keeps a chicken or two. Maddalena, who has 100 birds, said he and friends in the Pacific Coast Bantam Club breed and show the chickens much like the owners of purebred dogs.

“In the morning they crow, sure,” said Maddalena, 28. “But you get used to it. It doesn’t bother people who raise them.”

Members of the Bantam Club and other poultry associations say they are mobilizing to oppose the zoning amendment. They have gained support from Walter Prince, a Chatsworth man who has formed a group called ROOSTER--Rural Outcry Over Sexist Tactics to Exterminate Roosters--and who is gathering signatures in opposition to the law.

The chicken conflicts have been most intense in an unincorporated island of county territory surrounded by Whittier, Santa Fe Springs and La Mirada.

Residents in the working-class district around Inez Street began filing complaints in 1987 against three neighbors, including one who reportedly kept more than 60 birds. In 1989, 45 residents signed a petition demanding removal of the roosters. Two of the homes, suspected of keeping roosters for cockfights, eventually agreed to get rid of their birds, said Lt. Fred Randolph of the County Department of Animal Care and Control.

After nuisance complaints, the third chicken owner, Crispin Munoz, agreed last year to keep just five birds on his property, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Pat Brown. But Munoz had soon built his flock back to nearly 30 birds, Brown said.

“It was kind of like living in hell,” said next-door neighbor Betty VanderHoek. “You would hear it day and night. One would start and then they would all get going.”

Early this year, the district attorney’s office charged Munoz with two misdemeanor counts of disturbing the peace.

On June 12, Munoz pleaded no contest to the charges, paid a $150 fine and agreed to clear out all hens, roosters and chicken coops by July 12 in order to avoid 30 days in jail and a $500 fine. A hearing is scheduled Aug. 14 to determine if Munoz has complied with the order.

Munoz had little to say about the conflict this week, except that he has given away four hens and three show roosters and is prepared to haul away the last of the chicken coops. “I don’t have problems with anybody right now,” he concluded.