Animal rescue group calls off its fundraiser
An animal rescue organization's plans for its third annual garage sale fundraiser this week in Butler Township were canceled after group members were told the sale would violate a township ordinance.
Stray Solutions Animal Rescue of Butler was planning to have a garage sale with donated items at the home of Linda Michaels, a board member, on South Duffy Road near the Whitestown Road intersection Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Her home is near the township administrative office on South Duffy Road.
“We're just trying to raise money for animals that need help,” said Patricia Potter, the group's president.
Stray Solutions doesn't operate a shelter, but it accepts stray cats and occasionally small stray dogs, has them vaccinated and adopts them to people who can keep them indoors.
“We usually have a good turnout,” Potter said.
The organization raised $1,800 at last year's sale and $1,200 in 2018, she said.
On Wednesday, the group set up a tent in Michaels' yard, and donors dropped off items for the sale.
Township zoning officer Jesse Hines visited the home Thursday and presented Michaels with an enforcement letter advising her to end the sale.
The township's peddling or solicitation ordinance requires a permit for the sale of personal property not owned by the occupant or resident through a garage, yard or porch sale, Hines said.
He said he didn't know how the sale was conducted in 2018, but he visited the sale last year and told the group to finish it, but it violated the ordinance and they weren't allowed to have one this year.
“When I saw it this year, they got a legal notice.” Hines said.
He said he has no issues with the organization or the people involved in it, but the ordinance mandates that the type of sale that the group tried to have requires a permit and must be held on property zoned for commercial use. The permit application costs $100.
The garage sale would have been allowed to proceed if the property owner was selling items she owned, Hines said.
Potter said she wasn't there when Hines arrived, but she talked to him at the administrative building later that day. She said she argued that the organization owned the items because they were donated, but it didn't change Hines' mind.
“I assume it's ours once they give it to us. This stuff was given to me,” Potter said.
Hines compared the situation to fireworks sales around Independence Day. People selling fireworks obtain peddling or solicitation permits and hold the sales in tents on commercial property like retail store parking lots, he said.
“We enforce this routinely,” Hines said.
Multiple people delivered items for the garage sale, several people staffed the sale and people coming to the sale were parking on South Duffy Road near the busy intersection creating a safety problem, he said.
Safety is one of the main reasons the ordinance requires such sales to be held on commercial property, he added.
When Hines arrived at last year's garage sale, Michaels said, he told her that she wasn't allowed to operate the mobile cat spay and neutering unit that was set up in the driveway, and the sale could only be held for three days.
“Last year, nothing happened,” Michaels said.
She said this year's garage sale was advertised for those three days, but it won't be held.
“We're not going to be able to proceed,” Potter said.
