Santa Monica Council Shuns Tethering of Ponies -- Votes for Change

Early Wednesday morning, approaching 2 am, four Santa Monica council members – Ted Winterer, Gleam Davis, Tony Vasquez, and Kevin McKeown -- passed a motion instructing city staff to either open the bidding process for alternatives to the tethered pony ride and cramped petting zoo at the Main Street farmers market or allow the market manager to institute a pilot educational program (cooking, arts), once the current animal exhibitor’s contract expires in May. Either way, preference is to be given to non-animal vendors. Additionally, the council instructed staff to explore alternative more spacious venues in city parks, where children might be able to take trail rides on horses with gentle leads, not a metal bar across their face.

Here’s a link to the discussion, which occurs at 9:20:24.
http://santamonica.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=3329

The motion that passed comes on the heels of a petition I launched last spring, calling on the city council to close the exploitative animal exhibits. The petition now has over 1,400 signatures.
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/shut-down-pony-rides

I want to thank council members Winterer and Davis for their leadership. Santa Monica can now move forward in a more positive and humane direction, offering our children uplifting activities like painting, poetry, and drama, rather than sad animal spectacles involving tethering and trapping of voiceless creatures. I’m looking forward to the day my neighbors, who have long boycotted this market, can return without experiencing that sinking feeling so many describe upon seeing the circling ponies, their heads low and their faces obscured by a metal pole.

Pony ride operator Tawni Angel spoke to the council – as did her supporters – defending the rides as educational and fun for the children. Others said the children looked miserable, forced to ride the ponies by parents nostalgic for a bygone era. Angel and her supporters, including a burly guy who signed in as “The People of California,” also accused me of making false statements and engineering an unfounded protest. In response, attorney and animal rights activist Judy Powell suggested the animal exhibitor was resorting to name calling because of the weakness of her defense. (For the record, I have not lied about anything and have hefty documentation amassed under the California Public Records Act as evidence of my veracity; I also have many photos of the tethered and trapped animals on the www.freethepony web site, where a video is featured.)

Also among those testifying on Wednesday morning was local veterinarian Robert Goldman, who referred to the animal spectacles as “captive exploitation.” Goldman questioned whether the city had ever established an “Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee” involving veterinarians and animal behaviorists. Colin Wadkin, an animal rights champion who protested the pony ride in 2005 and, together with Nazila Mahgerrfteh, collected signatures from almost a thousand market patrons wanting to close the tethered pony ride, testified “All you have to do is look into the ponies’ eyes to see their misery.” Wadkin was arrested in 2005, when he exercised his First Amendment rights by leafleting in front of the pony carousel.

Labor law attorney Ira Gottlieb (my husband) told the council the issue is not whether the ponies can reason, but whether they can suffer. Jackie Hirtz, my writing partner and horse lover, pointed out the tight space in which the ponies plod is far too confining for the animals.

Others who spoke said animal excrement in close proximity to food poses health dangers, that children need to interact with animals in a more natural setting; that our present treatment of animals lacks compassion, and that we can do much better in a city that professes to be progressive.

I said it was time to end animal enslavement, and offered the pony ride operator support in forming a non-profit animal rescue sanctuary. There is no reason for any of the ponies to be put down, as The Gentle Barn, a rescue sanctuary 40 minutes from Santa Monica, has offered refuge to two ponies, and a local resident has offered to take care of the other four at a nearby sanctuary.

I asked the council to imagine young artists, poets, gardeners and cooks featured at the market’s entrance, and shared a fun photo of three girls participating in a cooking contest at a farmers market in Portland.

I look forward to the day in 2015 when Ocean Park neighbors can return to the nearby market and feel good about children expressing their creative talents and discovering their deepest gifts.

Again, thank you city council for moving in a more humane direction -- and thank you to the many residents who wrote to the council, showed up to gather petition signatures, wrote articles for the newspaper, and raised their mighty voice in the name of dignity and respect for the voiceless among us.