Laguna Beach Council Tightens Regulations on Excessive Dog Barking and Vicious Animal Behavior

The city's newly-proposed ordinance sets specific time limits for barking and defines what constitutes a "vicious" animal, in an attempt to standardize enforcement and address public nuisance concerns.

The Laguna Beach City Council is taking steps to enhance local regulations surrounding dog behavior, targeting excessive barking and animals deemed to be a public threat. The move aims to make enforcement more uniform and minimize disputes between pet owners and complainants within the city.

Under the proposed ordinance, the benchmark for a dog's excessive barking would be set at 30 minutes of continuous barking or an hour of intermittent barking within a 24-hour period. This fills a regulatory gap, as current laws do not outline any specific guidelines for excessive barking.

Jim Beres, a city administrator who supervises the city’s animal control officers, sees the new guidelines as a way to level the playing field. “Some dog owners have felt that they’ve been treated differently than others, and in all candor, that has been true to some degree,” Beres said at the July 25 council meeting.

The ordinance further classifies a “vicious” animal as one that inflicts severe injury or death on a person or another pet, or causes extensive property damage. Such animals could be impounded by animal control, with the owner having the right to appeal through a hearing process.

The unanimous decision on July 25 sets the stage for a second reading before the ordinance becomes official.

In recent years, the issue of dog barking has become a hot topic in Laguna Beach. In 2021, the police department received 222 complaints, resulting in 81 warnings and nine citations. These numbers dropped to five citations and 76 warnings in 2022, with 23 warnings so far in 2023.

Beres expects that the number of warnings and citations will further decrease with the new rules, as they aim to make judgment less subjective. The proposed barking time limit aligns with other cities across Orange County, including Anaheim, Huntington Beach, Tustin, and San Juan Capistrano.

Despite the intention to standardize the rules, some residents have expressed concerns. Penelope Milne, a Laguna Beach dog trainer, questioned how the police department will monitor the new time limits, saying, “The idea to make a more objective standard is excellent, but the problem is neighbors get to declare whether a dog is a nuisance or not. There aren’t too many other things in the city where the evidence base is the irritated next-door neighbor without any kind of cross-check.”

Moreover, resident Susan Hamil fears that the new regulations could adversely affect her large dogs, which she keeps outside for security purposes. “Watchdog is a function of these dogs for coyotes, strange people that wander in the canyon at night and come up to your house and sometimes the Amazon driver too,” Hamil said. “You don’t want to be up here by yourself and have an odd person that you might have in Laguna Canyon wandering around your house.”

The ordinance also introduces preventative measures against tying animals to vehicles, bicycles, or e-bikes, adding to the existing state law against animal cruelty. This change looks to address instances that might not meet the legal definition of abuse but can still affect an animal's wellbeing.

The newly proposed regulations reflect Laguna Beach's ongoing commitment to animal control, as it operates a city animal shelter and is one of the few police agencies in Orange County to manage its own shelter. The measures represent a balance between animal control and the rights and responsibilities of pet owners, yet their impact will only truly be known once they are put into practice.