Pet Peeve

CAMARILLO —  Not everyone wants to be an Oscar Mayer wiener. Certainly not this Oscar Mayer, a pot-bellied pig whose fate will be decided at the City Council meeting tonight.

Oscar Mayer, a miniature Vietnamese version of the common farm pig, has lived on Colony Drive in Camarillo for four years--much to the dismay of neighbors who say he stinks and draws flies.

What’s even worse for Oscar, however, is that the city prohibits pot-bellied pigs because it categorizes them as farm animals. Oscar’s owner, Robert Hamilton, must therefore remove his “best friend” or face criminal prosecution.

“There’s flies, odors and other problems,” said Tony Boden, Camarillo planning director. “It’s a pig, for God’s sake--it walks like a pig, grunts like a pig and smells like a pig. We don’t feel it’s compatible with a residential area because we get complaints from people that live next to them.”

When the city received complaints of three other odoriferous swine in the last couple of years, officials notified the owners that they were in violation and the pigs were removed, Boden said.

Unlike the other pot-bellied pig owners, Hamilton refuses to relinquish custody of his snout-nosed companion. That prompted the Code Enforcement Department to recommend that the City Council press criminal charges and that, if convicted, Hamilton be placed on summary probation for two years, show proof of relocating Oscar and pay a $1,000 fine.

Hamilton, 43, who was unaware that he could potentially face criminal charges, said he will do whatever it takes to convince officials that Oscar is not a farm animal.

“Do they really want to come and arrest me over a pet that doesn’t bother anyone?” said Hamilton, a construction worker and bartender. “He lives in the house, he sleeps in the house, he doesn’t defecate in other people’s yards and he doesn’t bite people--I mean, how many times do you hear about pit bulls and Rottweilers biting people? But never pot-bellied pigs.”

Hamilton, who took in Oscar when the pig was four weeks old, claims he’s not in violation of the city’s animal ordinance because Oscar lived with him prior to when the pot-bellied breed of pigs was added to the ordinance in 1992.

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Boden disagreed, saying a 1976 version of the animal ordinance considered pigs farm animals.

Hamilton and his attorney, Thomas Malley, will try to persuade the City Council tonight to amend the ordinance so that it will define pot-bellied pigs, who grow to an adult size of between 14 and 18 inches in height and vary in weight from 40 to 150 pounds, as household pets rather than farm animals.

“The city wants to draw the line on the types of pets that are permitted and limit them to the traditional animals which bother neighbors like cats, dogs, birds and the like,” Malley said, adding that there’s only been one complaint in four years about Oscar.

Hamilton said he would move from the neighborhood if he could, but that it’s not possible because he’s in the middle of buying the house he and Oscar share.

“It scares me to think of him living somewhere else--he doesn’t know anything else but here,” Hamilton said. “There’s a lady in Solvang who takes in these pigs, but keeps them outside. Oscar’s never had to live outside and I’d be concerned that he’d get sick.

“He’s got me through a lot of bad times. He’s my partner, and I call him my first born, actually.”

Marga Hanks, the adjoining property owner who does not live on the premises, began calling and writing the city about Oscar in July 1996, mostly concerned about odor and the possibility of rats. Hanks’ tenant, Jennifer Everett, has also complained about the pig, who Hamilton says is in the house when he’s not home and wanders outside only when he needs to relieve himself on a pile of pine shavings. Hanks and Everett could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

“Typically, pot-bellied pigs do not like to be walked, and therefore do not foul the sidewalks and lawns of the neighborhood,” attorney Malley stated in a letter to the council. “Miniatures do not present the danger to mail carriers, children and neighbors that many dogs traditionally have. One asks, then, how can four dogs be permitted while even one miniature pig is not?”

More than 4,000 pot-bellied pig-owners in the city of Los Angeles have lobbied for the past two years to rewrite zoning laws that prohibit the pint-sized porkers in residential areas and adopt an ordinance to have them licensed, just as the city licenses dogs and cats.

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Although the Los Angeles Department of Animal Regulation supports the idea, the city’s Planning Department and City Council adamantly oppose it because they say that the pigs are, well, pigs, and don’t deserve a change in zoning laws.

“Animal control supports it because they see it as a revenue source,” said Kathy Jenks, director of Ventura County Animal Regulation. “Zoning and planning opposes it because they see it as a neighborhood problem if people keep pigs. But if pigs are kept as pets, then you don’t have odors and flies.”

Although the pot-bellied pig craze has pretty much come and gone, Jenks says she still has three or four of the critters in her shelter at any given time. The Pot-Bellied Pig Rescue service is called on a regular basis to either place them in sanctuaries or appropriate homes.

Camarillo code enforcement officials admit they are concerned about opening the floodgates, which, if pot-bellied pigs were allowed, could carry in such requests as allowing miniature horses, goats, donkeys and other barnyard critters. And they claim an inspection program to ensure certain health and safety standards would be complicated and costly.

Although prohibited in residential areas in Oxnard and Ojai, pot-bellied pigs squeal for joy in Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Ventura and Fillmore neighborhoods, where they are considered domestic animals.