GARDEN GROVE : Can Pigeons Fly in Face of the Law?

Bogdan (Bugsy) Szymanek will find out tonight whether 70 of his homing pigeons will be forced to fly the coop.

At tonight’s meeting, the City Council will reconsider a law prohibiting residents from keeping more than 10 birds on their property.

So far, both city staff and the Planning Commission have recommended that the city retain the 10-birds law, citing potential harm to local health and safety.

“I keep my fingers crossed,” Szymanek said Monday.

Szymanek, 36, is also scheduled to appear today in West Orange Municipal Court to answer seven misdemeanor charges that he violated the bird-limiting ordinance.

The proceedings against him, which started more than a year ago after the city received an anonymous complaint about his birds, could result in hundreds of dollars in fines, Garden Grove officials said Monday.

After the complaint was made last year, 48 neighbors signed petitions stating that the pigeons were not “a nuisance in any way.” The city then proposed a compromise that would have allowed Szymanek to keep the birds in exchange for a $1,050 fee for a conditional-use permit, but he objected to the cost.

Szymanek, a self-employed machinist who emigrated from Poland in 1973, now keeps 80 racing pigeons in a back-yard loft at his Law Street home.