Owning a plethora of pooches has been banned in the city of Statham.
The Statham City Council passed an ordinance Tuesday limiting homeowners to three dogs.
Anyone with four or more dogs inside the city limits will now be considered a kennel and must comply to regulation and inspections by code enforcement officers, according to the ordinance.
“Anyone who presently has more than three dogs may keep them, but they may not replace them,” said City of Statham Mayor Robert Bridges.
Bridges said the goal of the ordinance is to get rid of hobby kennels.
“We had one person who ran a hobby kennel, and he was raising the dogs to fight,” Bridges said.
He said the ordinance bans those hobby kennels and has “bite” to be able to punish violators.
Bridges said the ordinance will mainly be enforced when there is a complaint against a resident, especially in subdivisions.
Code enforcement will be writing citations to those who violate the new ordinance, Bridges said.
Statham is in Barrow County between Atlanta and Athens.
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