The Village of Roslyn Estates will not pursue a proposed local law prohibiting the feeding of undomesticated animals, village officials said this week.
“When we first started talking about it, there were a lot of complaints about people putting food out in front of their houses unattended, but by the time we started considering the actual legislation, it had quieted down,” Village of Roslyn Estates Mayor Jeff Schwartzberg said. “We just didn’t think it was worth pursuing.”
A public hearing on the proposal scheduled during Monday’s board of trustees meeting was canceled.
The law would have allowed residents to only feed animals that do not belong to them as long as they had proper authorization to do so, such as in the case of a resident caring for a neighbor’s pet while that neighbor is on vacation.
Chris Prior, who represents the Village of Roslyn Estates on behalf of the law firm Ackerman, Levine, Cullen, Brickman & Limmer LLP, said last month the proposed law would have been the first of its kind in Nassau County.
Trustees last month said they were interested in hearing feedback from residents on the proposal.
They considered the law as written to be problematic because it would have inadvertently restricted residents from feeding ducks at village parks.
The law was drafted, trustees said, in part to rid the village of a growing number of stray cats wandering about residences, as well as a variety of woodland creatures that have become a nuisance to homeowners.
But according to a CBS New York story Monday, some Roslyn Estates residents and animal rights groups were preparing to oppose the legislation during the hearing.
“We can’t let creatures of nature die,” Roslyn Estates resident Stewart Klein told CBS. “We’re not the king of the kingdom.”
Resident Patricia Matuza, who owns three feral cats, added, “…they are like my children…And I can’t imagine starving my children.”
Schwartzberg said Tuesday that the board did not feel pressured to abandon the proposal, but currently “have no plans to go anywhere at this point” with an alternative solution to removing the animals from the village.
