Posted on: Sunday, January 13, 2002

EDITORIAL
Restrict chickens to country setting

This time it's Salt Lake. Neighbors are complaining that crowing roosters are waking them up at 3 a.m.

Well, that's what roosters do. Folks who raise poultry for eggs and meat learn to live with it. And farmers live in the countryside, so their neighbors aren't close by.

There's simply no place for chickens in an urban or suburban setting such as Salt Lake. The ordinance governing chickens is terribly out of date and must be changed. It limits the number of chickens per household in residential areas to two.

There was a day when even in town folks had big back yards where there was room for poultry sheds. Today a 10,000-square-foot lot is considered large.

The City Council must update the ordinance to prohibit chickens — entirely — from crowded neighborhoods.

Residents should know better than to inflict such punishment on their neighbors, but since they don't, there has to be a law.