A decade after Aurora electorate final made up our minds the destiny of pit bulls in Colorado’s third-largest town — by means of opting to stay town’s ban in position — they’ll revisit the query.
In November, electorate will make a decision whether or not 3 varieties of pit bulls — the American pit bull terrier, the American Staffordshire terrier and the Staffordshire bull terrier — can legally be saved within the town. The Aurora Town Council on Monday referred a measure asking that query to this autumn’s poll.
The newest twist within the saga of pit bulls in Aurora was once brought on by means of a ruling in past due March by which Arapahoe County District Pass judgement on Elizabeth Beebe Volz struck down the council’s 2021 resolution to repeal town’s long-standing pit bull ban.
Electorate seven years previous had selected to stay town’s breed-specific ban — first enacted in 2005 — in position. The pass judgement on’s conclusion: As it was once the electorate who determined in opposition to jettisoning Aurora’s pit bull ban in 2014, simplest they may make the verdict to opposite that place.
“Because the Town didn’t publish the proposed repeal of the pit bull ban to some other vote, its enactment of an ordinance opposite to the vote of the (prior) answer proposing repeal was once with out authority and subsequently is void,” she wrote in her March 26 ruling.
Volz was once responding to a lawsuit filed by means of an Aurora resident who challenged town’s 2021 repeal.
However town spokesman Michael Brannen stated the repeal stays in impact whilst town appeals the pass judgement on’s ruling. In November, electorate may make that repeal everlasting or reinstate the unique ban with their resolution.
The approaching vote comes at a time when pit bull bans were often vanishing in Colorado. Denver electorate ended town’s 30-year ban at the animals in past due 2020. A pit bull ban was once lifted in Castle Lupton the former 12 months. In 2021, elected leaders in Trade Town and Lone Tree did the similar.
The primary of Colorado’s bans on pit bulls got here after quite a lot of extremely publicized assaults by means of the canines within the Nineteen Eighties. Many pit bull advocates declare the canines were unfairly blamed for being overly competitive, as a substitute insisting that canine house owners are in the long run chargeable for right kind coaching and socialization of the canines.
Aurora itself was once entrance and heart within the pit bull debate just about two decades in the past, when a 10-year-old boy within the town was once mauled by means of 3 of the canines in his yard. He misplaced his left arm and sustained face accidents.
The town had banned the breed simply weeks sooner than that incident — by the use of the Town Council, now not a vote of the folks.
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