Your pets are safe in Fort Collins, for now...
A 21-year-old biology major at Colorado State University failed in her effort to get a proposal that would have banned the sale of animals at pet stores in Fort Collins on the April ballot.
But Laure Molitor says she succeeded in starting a debate about "puppy mills" and "kitten factories" supplying local pet stores with animals.
"It says a lot that a 21-year-old girl can rile up a city this much," said Molitor. "I think we definitely opened up a lot of people's minds, we started a dialogue."
Molitor needed to gather at least 2,517 signatures of registered voters to qualify the measure for the April ballot, but fell short by about 1,135 signatures, according to a review by the Fort Collins City Clerk's office.
Molitor and her crew of volunteers worked hard over the past month to make up the difference but could only get 900 or so legitimate signatures, she said.
"It was a learning experience and now I know I would have done things differently.
"We found some neighborhoods that people behind every single door signed up," she said. "But there were other neighborhoods where people wanted to nothing to do with it."
The proposed ordinance would have banned the sale of cats, dogs and other small animals, including birds, reptiles and rodents, by pet stores.
The idea, said Molitor, was to stop pet stores from buying animals from mass breeding facilities she said are often plagued by disease and overcrowding.
However, the owners of Fort Collins' lone pet store — Pet City — objected to the ban, saying it unfairly targeted stores that bought from legitimate breeders.
"We feel like the community was able to look past the cliches and the catch phrases and see what the ban was really about," Pet City co-owner Gregg Kinnes told the Fort Collins Coloradoan.
Molitor said she is not giving up her fight. She may try again in a year or two with another ballot effort.
"I wanted to people to hear about puppy mills and I'm hoping to do the same thing in the future," she said.
Monte Whaley: 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com.
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