Exorcising His Bird Rights

I have declined to enter the, er, loft myself.

Bugsy’s in there, though. Loves it in there. He and his friends say that it is, in fact, a whole other world in there.

And I believe them all right.

Bugsy and his wife, Irene, ask me if I smell anything bad. No, I do not.

Do I see any flies, swarms of flies?

Negative here. How about noise? Do I hear any noise?

Uh, can’t say that I do. Except for the dogs, that is. A Chihuahua and a German shepherd, barking in the garage. So that doesn’t count.

I am here about this pigeon matter.

Bugsy and Irene Szymanek, a heck of a nice couple if you ask me, have pigeons. About 80 racing pigeons at their home in Garden Grove.

Not inside the house , of course, but on the premises. In apparent violation of the law.

“In Poland, it is not a big deal,” Bugsy says. “Here they make it a big deal. I have pictures, in magazines, people living with their pigeons, with their pigeons in the attic. This is in Belgium. It’s not a big deal. Here they make it a big deal.”

Bugsy is due to appear in West Orange County Municipal Court on July 16 to answer to the charges on which he has been accused: seven misdemeanor counts of violating section 6.04.050 of the Garden Grove Municipal Code.

Each count is for keeping “in excess of 10 pigeons,” 10 being the legal limit for pigeons in Garden Grove.

The proceedings against Bugsy have been going on for a year. It started with an anonymous complaint. To this day, nobody knows who would bad mouth the Szymanek pigeons.

“One day, the city just came and knocked on my door,” Bugsy says.

The matter was brought before the City Council. Bugsy and Irene, backed by the good offices of the California Racing Pigeons Assn., vouched for their birds. They presented the signatures of 48 neighbors who agreed with the statement: “We do not feel that the pigeons are a nuisance in any way.”

Yet a compromise could not be worked out. The city suggested Bugsy pay a $1,050 conditional-use permit fee. Bugsy said, “Too high.”

“This is my hobby,” he says. “Why should I pay them $1,050 so I can have a hobby? Is this America or what? I don’t sell these birds, I give them away. Here. You want to start? I’ll give you some breeders and you can start.”

Once again, I decline.

Not that these pigeons aren’t something else, I will tell you that.

For one thing, the 4-day-old squab that Bugsy is holding in his hand is perhaps the ugliest animal I have seen in my life. Think of one of those cartoon vultures--only in miniature--covered with random blond hairs, with a face like Jimmy Durante. In utero.

“At this age, he’s edible,” Bugsy says. “But we don’t eat them. I’d never eat my own. You see them coming out of the egg, it’s different.”

Which I can understand. Different is a good word to sum up this pigeon matter.

Bugsy says they are affectionate. He tells me I watch too many Hitchcock movies.

“Didn’t you see all those fake heads in that movie?” he says, referring of course to “The Birds,” which has made a lasting impression on me.

My mother and I once sought out the very restaurant in Bodega Bay where the film was shot. We had lunch, to no ill effect.

But still. . . .

Pigeons? Who was it, Woody Allen, who first called them rats with wings?

Correction. The Szymanek pigeons are not street pigeons--which Bugsy, too, disparages as fat and stupid and generally unkempt--but homing pigeons, who are not only fit but possibly brilliant.

“Pigeons are fifth in intelligence in the animal kingdom,” says John Gaudenti, a pigeon pal of Bugsy’s who has happened by.

John, who is also the race secretary for Orange County’s Rams pigeon racing club, is unable to provide ironclad sources for this assertion but speculates that dogs and monkeys might be a little smarter than pigeons.

Nobody mentions people. Although, come to think about it, Bugsy says, “How many people, if you took them out in the middle of the woods and said, ‘Find your way home,’ would be able to do that?”

The unspoken consensus is, “Not many.”

Which, incidentally, could be a problem for the city of Garden Grove.

Because even if Bugsy were to comply with the city’s request to heretofore remove at least 70 pigeons--which seems highly unlikely from what I know of Bugsy--the birds would still come here, to the only home they have ever known , to roost.

Bugsy opens one of the pigeon-sized gates on his homemade loft, which is not to be confused with a coop, because of course, these are not chickens.

“I’ve got about 160 pigeons,” says John, who lives in liberal (pigeon-wise) Buena Park. “I’ve never had a single problem, until I got one chicken. Then the roof fell in on me.”

Which I will not get into here.

Bugsy whistles. Then, next thing you know, a pigeon appears at the opened gate. He seems to be the line monitor. Then another pigeon waddles up behind him, and then another, and another, and you get the idea.

“Come on, dudes, come on,” Bugsy says.

Pretty soon, they’re outta there, flying in a flock way, way over our heads. They seem to be having a good time. Exercising, Bugsy calls it.

“And they don’t sit on anybody’s house,” he says. “They’re not allowed to--only my house. And if they do, you just quit feeding them for a couple days.”

I will take Bugsy at his word. This is obviously a man who knows his birds.

Pigeons have been in his family for generations: his grandfather, his father, him and now his own three kids. His family started “in the old country,” Bugsy says, which would be southwest Poland.

Bugsy, who is 36, has been in the United States since he was 18 and here, in this house, with his birds, since 1982. He owns a small machine shop.

Three years ago, somebody called county pest control in regard to the Szymanek birds. The inspector couldn’t find anything wrong then. And now this, a pigeon case to settle in court.

Bugsy says he will make a point. He’s hoping that Garden Grove will change its pigeon law. He says the city can inspect, issue pigeon licenses, whatever it wants so that he can keep his birds. He says Westminster, Orange and Buena Park have the right idea. Pro-bird.

Garden Grove, however, has so far been unmoved. Frank Schuma, director of development services--the city’s pigeon point man--was not amused by any of this when we talked over the phone, before I came to see said pigeons for myself.

He gave me the impression that Bugsy Szymanek--a name, incidentally, that the city misspells in consistently creative ways--was some kind of nut.

“Most of these people, they think that we people who have pigeons are crazy,” Bugsy says.

But now I know that this is clearly untrue.

Pigeon people--doctors, lawyers, millionaires, Clint Eastwood, Mike Tyson, Michael Landon, dentists , Queen Elizabeth!--they just want to have fun. Or so Bugsy says.

In Orange County, they even have their own pigeon lodge, in Stanton, where members of the six local pigeon clubs can shoot the breeze, talk birds.

“Well, what else are we going to talk about, women ?” Bugsy says.

And, of course, he has a point. There is nothing else, er, quite like these birds.