Illegal Serial Animal Feeding

[XLFD]

About three weeks ago, I admitted to a serious breach of the laws of my municipality, the City of Ludington, when I related my transgression and took a picture for posterity in this thread:  Cat and Mouse.  I definitely violated a City Code and was guilty of a civil infraction, and felt guilty enough to contact the Chief of Police, the City Manager, and the Mayor by E-mail, immediately notifying them of my violation.

For some reason, I never got called for my actions.  Was it okay to feed someone else's cat outside my residence?  The law says no; the inaction by the officials says it was okay.  Is this not a republic, governed by laws, and not by whether these three enforcers of the laws of Ludington overlook that fact and decide not to do their jobs?

The one thing it does mean is that the law apparently has no bite to it.  I can go completely against it, report my actions, admit I did it willfully, and still not get a civil infraction from doing it.  The consequence is that if you or someone you know ever decides to feed a stray kitty and some Ludington Code-enforcing Fife tries to invoke this law on you, you can point to my unpunished civil disobedience here and claim that they are unfairly administering this ordinance.  Pretty neat, eh?  Maybe we can nullify other really stupid ordinances as well, that were passed by some local legislators who had nothing better to do at the time.

I had some striped shortbread cookies that had been opened and forgot about (very stale), and a discarded copy of the City of Ludington Daily News (COLDNews) just to verify that these weren't older pictures taken before the seagull-feeding law took effect.

Now here's another ordinance that was passed by the same people who gave us the cat feeding ordinance.

Section 34-99   Animals creating disturbances or nuisances

(f)   Feeding of other animals. No person shall intentionally feed, make available, nor assist another person to make food available, for seagulls, geese or other wildlife in city parks, marinas and beaches.

(g)  Violation. A violation of this section shall constitute a municipal civil infraction.

There's probably few things funnier at the beach than seeing someone leave some food on their beach blanket as they walk the beach or go out in the water, and see the seagulls come down and make quick work of their lunch.  But thanks to the Ludington City Council, they no longer have to just feel stupid, they have to worry about getting a citation.  I don't think stupidity should be a crime, even from a fudgie, and so for their benefit, I decided to willfully feed these birds and suffer the consequences.

These guys love those stale cookies and the past-due pretzel sticks they were fed that day.  And someone was insistent on being able to do it too when they heard what I did.  But I told them it was against the law, and they could get in trouble.

"Feeding seagulls is illegal?  That's silly.  What do they want me to do with these old crackers that we would put in some landfill if we didn't feed them to the seagulls.  Save the Earth."

How do you argue with that?  Recycling food that you would just throw away, if you didn't feed them to the seagulls.  You provide nourishing food that seagulls really like, and save yourself some trash bags.  Killing two birds with one stone, so to speak.

Our trip to the waterfront had us see only one seagull near the water, once we started feeding him some crackers, the word got out, and we had a crowd of these scavengers with wings pretty quick.

Once again, I will try to see whether the City law enforcers will want to enforce this section of the law in the local court system or defer their response to some real problem, some real crime.  In the meantime, I will feed whatever animal I feel like feeding and who accepts my food unless I am given some sort of good reason for not doing so. 

And I will advise anyone else not to yield their right to show compassion because some restrictive law with no basis for its enaction is in force.  Otherwise, like the City leaders of Philadelphia did, the next thing they'll go for is to make it illegal to feed the homeless.

[XLFD]

I'm looking into maybe going through the initiative process to combat some of the recent ordinances put out.  Mayor Henderson's initiatory efforts to get more time at the top has inspired me.