Leisure World’s Unwelcome Mat for Pets

Imagine being a legal resident in an Orange County community with all the amenities--and not being able to use them. Now you know what it might be like to be a dog or cat in Seal Beach Leisure World.

For years, it didn’t matter for one simple reason: the senior citizen community banned pets, despite the desire of some residents who would love the companionship.

However, a new state law bans the ban in mobile home parks and other common-area communities. It allows residents to have pets “subject to reasonable rules and regulations.”

With that, the Leisure World administration had drawn up some bylaws for its brave new world of pets on the premises.

It has come up with some doozies. These are the kind of regulations that could send dogs and cats running to pet therapists expressing feelings of paranoia and alienation.

Here are some of the proposed rules that would govern pet ownership, as published in the Leisure World newspaper:

* Pets are forbidden, among other places, “on any street, sidewalk or common area or community facility . . . including administrative offices, clubhouses, amphitheater, golf course, swimming pool, streets, sidewalks, parking lots, health care center or any other common area.”

The exception: Pets “may be transported under the control of a resident in an enclosed animal carrier or in the resident’s arms while traversing the streets or sidewalks” leading in or out of a resident’s home.

* Residents may own no more than one “quadruped” per apartment or condo.

* No pet shall weigh more than 15 pounds at maturity.

* “No pet which is not owned by a resident shall be brought upon the premises.”

* “Residents are forbidden to permit their pets to deposit waste on the premises . . . including all common areas. In the event, due to unforeseen circumstances, waste is deposited, the pet owner is required to remove and properly dispose of all such pet waste immediately and forthwith.”

* “All residents owning a pet are required to remove the pet from the premises . . . to permit the pet to exercise or deposit waste.”

* “Those residents owning a cat, or another pet using a litter box, are required to change the litter at least twice each week. Tenants are required to separate the pet waste from the litter at least once each day.”

Stranger Than Fiction

I’m not making this up. A Leisure World administrator didn’t return a call I left, but officials say residents have until 4 p.m. Monday to respond to the proposed regulations.

Not surprisingly, some residents are complaining that the administration is violating the spirit of the new law. They think the proposed bylaws are intended to discourage anyone from getting a pet, especially a dog.

Ya think?

Bill Benner is president of the Leisure World Pet Lovers Club and says the state law is long overdue. The club formed last July to help residents who wanted to volunteer at the Seal Beach animal care center.

Benner is pretty good-natured about the proposals, possibly because he’s 75 and has seen lots of goofy things in his life. He suspects the administration might have gone overboard because it envisions a series of potential confrontations between pet lovers and those not so infatuated with them.

Even so, how do humans come up with a requirement that you carry your pet when it wants to go outside? And who’s going to monitor residents to see if they’re performing the daily separation of litter from waste in Fluffy’s box?

No doubt, many Leisure World residents recoil at the thought that dogs will now be going out for their daily constitutionals or that a cat may want to take a leisurely stroll of the grounds.

Understandable, but tell it to the Legislature.

It seemed to be under the impression that in the real world, a person is entitled to have a pet and not have to treat it like contraband.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821, by writing to him at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail at dana.parsons@latimes.com.