Welcome back to this biweekly meeting of the budget and policy committee of Denver City Council.

Join us for the discussion as the budget and policy committee starts now.

Um, good afternoon, everybody.

Can everyone hear me?

Yes.

Is there an echo?

Yeah.

Oh no, okay, great.

There's not an echo anymore.

Um good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you for joining us at Budget Policy on Monday, August 4th.

My name is Amanda Sandoval.

I have the honor of representing Northwest Denver District One.

Before we get started, let's go around the room for introductions, and then we can get into the um the proposal today.

I'll start with my left.

Good afternoon, Diana Romero Campbell, Southeast Denver District 4.

Uh good afternoon, Daryl Watson, District 9.

Sorry, one of your members at large.

Jamie Torres, West Denver District 3.

Thank you.

We have one proposal in front of us today.

Um, Councilmember Hines, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um, I wanna bring a couple advocates to the table.

Roland, will you come on, come on down or come on up?

Um so uh uh first of all, I want to start off by uh thanking Andre for um all the work that he's done on helping move this presentation forward, and um uh but uh before we get into the presentation itself, why don't we introduce yourself and then we'll go around the Sure.

Uh yeah, I appreciate that, Councilman.

Um it's great to see it coming forward.

It's been a long process, um, a lot of help from these two.

I'm Andre, I'm the senior aide for Councilman Hines.

Yeah, let them introduce themselves.

And uh Roland Halpern, Executive Director for Colorado Voters for Animals.

We're an all-volunteer organization representing about 45,000 people in Colorado that love animals.

Hello, I'm Amy and Jesse.

I'm the puppy mills public policy director with Humane World for Animals.

Recently changed our name from Humane Society of the United States if that rings any bells.

Not to be confused with Humane Colorado, very recently known as the Dumb Friends League.

Right.

We were both going through name changes and had no idea how similar they would be when they became public.

Super, okay, so um, so let's just uh go through the presentation.

Um first of all, I think it's important to uh to talk about what is this common term.

What is a puppy mill?

Um it is a um, because we're talking about puppies, the it is a dog breeding operation in which the health of the dogs is disregarded in order to maintain a low overhead and maximize profits.

So that's uh that's an important definition for um the policy that I'll be talking about today.

Um, uh here is uh an example of um uh an adoptable dog from uh from the Denver Animal Shelter.

Who is not here?

But um uh the uh this is an example of uh a um adult dog that uh the adoption fee is 75 dollars and um uh and then the dog.

I think this is what is it called?

Um where you're animating someone who cannot um speak for themselves.

The dog is saying I've been at the shelter since July 28th, 2025.

So um it uh just I think it's important to say that buying a pet from a pet store uh contributes to pet overpopulation and displaces a home for local shelter animal in need.

And this uh this actually did come from our Denver Animal Shelter.

Um the uh proposed legislature today is talking about um eliminating the retail sale of three species, uh puppies, kittens, and rabbits.

Um and in part because the breeding methods are inherently cruel.

Um, they're also uh with in breeding, there's um uh often uh costly future medical expenses that I would say uh the person who's purchasing the puppy does not know of the uh of the future medical expenses that they will have.

Um and uh so there's a bit of a knowledge disparity where the breeder knows that this is a um a uh uh an animal that will have medical um uh expenses and likely a shortened life.

Um but uh so the these um pet stores that we don't we don't have any of it in Denver right now, but they use um I would say predatory behavior to sell these dogs, cats, and rabbits, but they also use predatory lending schemes as well.

Uh and then there are public health issues as well as these are unhealthy dogs, and sometimes those health issues can be transmitted to humans.

Um there is a um an opportunity for federal oversight.

The US Department of Agriculture uh does license dog dealers, but um, but the oversight is minimal.