Photo: SHELBY TAUBER / AFP / Getty Images
LOS ANGELES (CNS) - The Los Angeles Board of Animal Services Commissioners is expected to recommended Tuesday that the City Council ban rodeos within city limits.
A City Council committee passed a proposed ordinance in December 2022 that would prohibit the use of electric prods, shocking devices, flank or bucking straps, wire tiedowns, sharpened or fixed spurs and rowels from rodeos or similar events.
The full council never voted on the ordinance, however, and some council members instead are switching their focus to an outright ban on rodeos.
The council originally asked the city attorney to draft that proposed ordinance in early 2021, modeling it after a 1992 ordinance enacted in Pittsburgh that Los Angeles officials say has worked well in its 30 years of enforcement.
"Rodeos often use a number of inhumane implements ... to encourage aggressive behavior in animals to produce an entertainment product. Animals suffer significant injuries during common rodeo events such as bull and bronco riding, steer wrestling and calf roping," the City Council motion stated. "Many animals are put down as a result of injuries sustained during these events. ... It is time for our city to act in the interest of animal welfare on this issue as it has in the past for other issues."
A ban would end the annual Los Angeles appearance by the Professional Bull Riders tour, which holds events at Crypto.com Arena in February.
The two-day 2023 PBR stop drew 12,529 fans for its Saturday night event, with about 20 animal rights demonstrators outside the arena.
"This passed committee unanimously late last year. I wished it would have passed council by now because it breaks my heart that more animals will suffer this weekend. But we were working hard to make sure it will pass soon so this can be the last of it in LA," John Popoch, deputy chief of staff for Councilman Bob Blumenfield, who co-authored the original motion in 2021, told CNS before the PBR event in February.
PBR events focus on bull riding and do not include other traditional rodeo events. The tour has fought back against complaints of cruelty, running an ad prior to its 2023 tour stop that stated: "Buck the L.A. City Council. The Only Thing Being Tortured is the Truth."
Sean Gleason, CEO and commissioner of Professional Bull Riders Inc., has called the proposed ordinance "unnecessary legislation" that will cancel events that he says benefit the local community.
"If it passes, we will not have events in L.A.," Gleason told City News Service previously. He added that PBR has many rules in place to ensure its animals are treated well, and offered to "invite L.A. City Council members to come to Crypto.com (Arena) ... to learn about the animal athletes who are the real rock stars of the sport, get the best care and live a great, long life -- four to five times longer than animals not fortunate enough to compete."
Pasadena banned the display of wild or exotic animals on public property in 2015, a law that applied to circuses and rodeos. Irvine banned rodeos in 2011, and Laguna Woods and Chino Hills have also banned them.
Other cities and counties -- including Alameda County in Northern California and Clark County in Nevada -- have passed more narrow prohibitions on specific rodeo activities without banning the events all together.
Rodeos are banned in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, and Vancouver, Canada banned them in 2006.