PROVO — City residents may now buy cats and dogs two by two, a solution that should keep the national media from hounding surprised Provo officials.
"We've reached the Noah solution," Provo spokesman Mike Mower said Tuesday night after the City Council voted unanimously to allow residents to have up to two dogs and two cats instead of just one of each.
What appeared to the City Council to be an innocuous attempt to change an ambiguous city ordinance drew the attention of the BBC, the Los Angeles Times and National Public Radio after an erroneous news report that a Provo ordinance didn't allow cats and dogs under the same roof.
The wording of the previous ordinance also seemed to permit either two dogs or two cats when it actually meant to restrict residents in urban areas of the city to one of each.
"At face value, the city code gives the impression we don't allow cats and dogs to live together," Councilman Dave Knecht said before the vote. "We do allow Odie and Garfield to live in the same house."
The Times gave up on the story when it learned Provo was like many other Utah cities and towns that limit residents to one cat and one dog.
Still, Provo opted to change one word in the ordinance so "two dogs or two cats" became "two dogs and two cats." That removed all the ambiguity and doubled the number of cats and dogs allowed in residential areas.
Stealing Noah's number was better than mimicking another Old Testament prophet, King Solomon, but several residents took the opportunity for public discussion to argue for a limit higher than two.
"Why are we legislating the number of animals?" local attorney Jackie de Gaston said. "Keep government out of this and trust parents and homeowners to take care of this."
However, most urban areas in Utah have similar restrictions.
"Government must set some sort of enforceable limit because otherwise you see extreme numbers," John Fox, chief investigator for the Humane Society of Utah, said in an interview. "There's no really reasonable way to do it. It has to be very arbitrary.
"Two and two seems to be the base standard across the state for major municipalities and counties."
The furry flap began in August after Susan Sewell went to the Utah County animal shelter to rescue a kitten and was told she couldn't have one because she already had a cat and a dog and lived in Provo.
"Our two little girls fought over the cat," said Sewell, who has six children. "They wanted their own."
Knecht took up the Sewell family's cause, and now that Sewell has fought city hall and won, she'll go back to the shelter sometime after Christmas.
Provo will go back to the drawing board. The council changed the ordinance but also directed the planning commission to restudy its zoning guidelines. The city's zoning regulations allow up to 10 dogs and cats in any combination in areas designated "residential agricultural" and different combinations in other areas of the city.
Tuesday's Provo City Council meeting was televised on the city's cable system, but the telecast included no note whether any animals were harmed during filming.
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