OCEAN CITY — It is more difficult again to open a dog kennel in Ocean City.
City Council approved an ordinance at its May 22 meeting that stops the city from issuing a mercantile license to a dog kennel, doggie day care or pet shop.
Mercantile licenses had been prohibited for those uses, all of which also are prohibited by the city’s zoning ordinances. In January, council voted 4-2 to allow mercantile licenses to be issued should a kennel use make it through the Zoning Board.
The definition in the zoning of a kennel is a building or lot on which four or more domesticated animals more than four months of age are housed, bred or boarded, trained or sold for commercial purposes. All those uses are prohibited in all zones in the city.
In January, city Solicitor Dorothy McCrosson pointed out the unlikelihood of such an occurrence, saying the Zoning Board would have to notify neighbors of an application asking for a variance and then would listen and heed their opposition.
However, in March, an applicant barely missed being successful in getting a variance to turn the building at 204 Seventh St. into a kennel. The Zoning Board voted 4-3 in favor — in spite of an outcry of opposition from neighbors — but the measure died because five positive votes are needed to approve a variance for a prohibited use.
After that, neighbors flooded City Council chambers to demand the city reinstate the ban on mercantile licenses for kennel uses.
Council members listened. On May 8 on first reading, council approved the ordinance rescinding its prior ordinance that lifted the ban on mercantile licenses. At the May 22 meeting, council voted unanimously on second reading to approve it. There was no public comment.
Now, even if a kennel use gets a waiver from the Zoning Board, it can’t get a license to operate.
– By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff