City Council Passes Law Banning Dogs Barking, But Mayor Vetoes Measure

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A bill unanimously passed in the Penha City Council, in Santa Catarina State, establishes a R$23,000 (US$4,600) fine for the owners of noisy animals. The law considers an infraction “to induce or fail to prevent animal noise”. In practice, it can be said that dogs are forbidden to bark.

The bill was submitted by city councilor Everaldo Dal Posso, and was approved by the Legislative Attorney General’s Office. It was also endorsed by the Constitution Committee, Justice, and Writing before reaching the plenary session.

Apparently, no one questioned how the limits for barking would be established, or how the owner should prevent the animal from making noise. This type of measure, as a rule, is conducive to abuse.

The law refers to disturbance of the peace and also penalizes “shouting and racketing”, “noisy work”, or excessive use of “sound instruments or acoustic devices” – such as alarms, for instance. And it establishes the same fine, of R$23,000, for such offenders. In the case of a company, the fine would cost double.

The endorsement on August 17th was controversial in Penha. Faced with this, some city councilors said behind the scenes that they only voted in favor of the bill because they had not read exactly what it was about. This renders the justification as poor as the bill.

As the Legislative is a serious area, there was no turning back – and the bill proceeded to the sanction of Mayor Achilles da Costa, who vetoed the project. The spokesperson of the Penha City Hall explained that the mayor did not even need to delve into the substance of the ban on barking. He barred the law because it has a defect in its origin, in other words, it is a type of rule that can not be the initiative of the Legislative. Only the Executive could propose something like this.

On Wednesday, August 26th, the veto was passed on to the City Council and should be read in plenary session on Monday. The veto is expected to be upheld by the city councilors.

Source: nsc total

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