Colorado judge reinstates Aurora's ban on pit bulls
Pit bulls are banned in the city of Aurora…again. In 2005, Aurora City Council banned the dog breed. Since then, opinions have changed on whether or not residents can have the breed as a pet. In 2014, voters affirmed their support of the ban in a referendum. Seven years later, the council voted to remove that ban.
After a three-year legal battle, a district court judge reinstated the city's ban on pit bulls last week.
After the council voted to repeal the ban in 2021, Aurora resident Matthew Snider filed a lawsuit challenging the council's vote.
According to the lawsuit: "In this case, the Aurora City Council ignored its city charter and override the express will of its voters. Specifically, in 2014 city voters overwhelmingly rejected an ordinance that would have repealed the city's ban on pit bulls."
Last week, Judge Elizabeth Beebe Volz ruled in favor of Snider, saying the council defied the will of voters. The council may not adopt an ordinance previously rejected by voters.
Tuesday, Snider told CBS Colorado he has no issue with pit bulls.
"I love dogs. All kinds of dogs. My action was not about dogs. It was solely and exclusively aimed at protecting the decision of Aurora voters in 2014, who voted by almost a two-thirds majority to retain the large breed ban," said Snider.
Councilmembers overruled a 2014 election where 64% of Aurora voters opposed allowing pit bulls in the city. Mayor Mike Coffman said the repeal should go for a vote of the people. He introduced a competing ordinance which would allow voters to decide on the future of the pit bull ban in the 2021 municipal election. That ordinance failed.
"The city council in 2020 created this mess by illegally overturning a bona fide election. If people are angry about this, they need to be angry with the city council, not me," said Snider. "I'm just protecting voters and elections. If I didn't, what other laws would the city council decide to overturn?"
In the years since that ban was repealed, many residents got pit bulls as pets.
Robbie De Jonge adopted two pit bulls, Ocean and Bjorn.
"[The council] should have done some more research to realize that they can't overturn the vote of the constituents. But they did," said Robbie. "We weren't legal minded at the time on this subject, so we thought we'll just go ahead and get pits ourselves."
She says the breed has become more common in her neighborhood, often seeing them out on daily walks.
Robbie, who refers to the pets as her babies, worries about what the future holds for her fur family.
"There's a lot of people that moved into Aurora because the ban was lifted," said Robbie. "I would move out of the city before they take my animals."
Since the ruling was just last week, the city says it's still evaluating the next steps, which could include enforcement of the ban or appealing the district court judge's decision.
