A Fair Ending to a Fowl Fight

In the great L.A. poultry war of 1990, people in chicken costumes battled bureaucrats over a proposal to ban roosters from residential areas in unincorporated areas of the county. The chicken lobby prevailed.

Now a smaller feathered frenzy has erupted in Topanga Canyon over a ragged black rooster, a dozen chickens and a duck that once escaped a packing plant and was found wandering down 1st Street.

The birds make too much noise in their coop, says next-door neighbor Glenn Lutz, an architect-builder who records sample squawks on a microcassette tape machine.

The fowl were here first, argues chicken owner D.B. Finnegan, who suggests that Lutz is an unhappy city boy out to destroy the rural character of her Topanga neighborhood.

So far, the case has wended through the county’s Regional Planning Department, its Animal Care and Control agency and, this week, the District Attorney’s office, which took a break from the usual panoply of rape and murder cases to conduct an “excessive noise by roosters and chickens” hearing.

“The whole thing is rather ridiculous,” says Lt. Gail Miley of animal control. “Most people don’t go to all this trouble.”

But the story goes beyond beaks and feathers.

The bad vibes began two years ago, when Lutz fenced off a vacant acre on Entrado Drive and started putting up a house. Old-time residents quickly decided that the newcomer--and the two-story structure that would soon dwarf their own aging cottages--didn’t belong.

He’s only building the house to sell it, some complained. He keeps his doors locked and has a burglar alarm, whispered others.

Lutz rolls his eyes at such talk. Sure, he intended to sell the house, but only so he could raise enough money to build his own home on the same lot. Thanks to the real estate slump, he’s living in the first house instead.

The real issue, Lutz suspects, is his fence. Before he enclosed the lot, the land functioned as an informal neighborhood park and gateway to nearby hiking trails. The fence, which Lutz says was required for insurance purposes during construction, makes access to the trails difficult at best. Neighbors vandalized it almost immediately, he says.

Then two bird battles arose.

The first involved a noisy parrot in the yard behind him. Lutz’s wife, Kathryn, says the incessant squawking was like “Chinese water torture.” Lutz went to court--armed with his microcassette tape machine--and won. The bird had to move.

Then he turned his attention to Finnegan’s chickens, which begin their clucking and cock-a-doodle-dooing at 4 a.m.

Pro-chicken forces saw it as a declaration of war on Topanga. “This is what happens when a very urbanized individual moves into a rural area,” says Finnegan ally David Phillips.

Lutz knew the birds were there, so he shouldn’t have moved in, the old-timers say.

But Lutz argues that a person’s rights shouldn’t be determined by when he moves into a neighborhood. Why should old-timers be the only ones allowed to enjoy the canyon’s tranquil setting? he asks.

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If not for the 1990 chicken war, Lutz might have had an easier battle. That’s when county officials decided to impose restrictions on residential chickens. But ROOSTER--Rural Outcry Over Sexist Tactics to Exterminate Roosters--swung into action. Poultry lovers descended on Regional Planning Department officials with petitions, marches and protesters wearing deluxe chicken costumes. When the feathers settled, county bureaucrats chickened out.

So without county restrictions on residential chickens, complaints about noisy fowl--and there have been many in recent years--pose something of a dilemma. Sleepless neighbors, forced to rely on existing public nuisance laws, find themselves snapping surreptitious photos, logging cock-a-doodle-doos and making secret recordings to persuade authorities that the birds are disturbing the peace.

Finnegan sees anti-chickenism as the beginning of the end for Topanga.

But the Lutzes say Finnegan has misread their intentions.

“I have no problem with chickens, goats, bees, even an elephant,” says Kathryn Lutz. “As long as it’s reasonable.”

“We never said get rid of the chickens,” Glenn Lutz adds. “Just move the coop out of our face.”

Lt. Miley of animal control agrees: “I think Mrs. Finnegan tried to make it look like (Lutz) wanted to change the ruralness of the area. That’s not the issue. It’s really about being courteous to your neighbor.”

On Monday, a district attorney hearing officer ordered the coop moved to the other side of Finnegan’s yard; the coop had been located directly next to the property line, illegal under county law.

Both sides claimed victory.

Finnegan is happy that the birds weren’t evicted outright. Lutz is pleased to win relief from their odor and noise.

The chickens were unavailable for comment.