Please Urge the Village of Lincolnwood, IL, to Enforce Its Ordinances!

You may remember our action alert regarding Spur, an elderly sulcata tortoise imprisoned at The Animal Store in Lincolnwood, Illinois. Municipal officials are evidently turning their back on countless other animals. Even though the village’s ordinance 11-3-18 expressly prohibits the keeping of any “naturally wild animals whatsoever,” The Animal Store is for some reason given carte blanche to peddle animals such as opossums, degus, tree frogs, savannah monitors, and red-cheeked mud turtles. And if they’re captive-bred—which isn’t even a specified exemption in the ordinance—they’re still “naturally wild” (not domesticated) species!

Making matters worse, village officials had the chance to adopt the Cook County ordinance prohibiting the sale of cats, dogs, and rabbits from breeders in pet stores—which, given the nation’s companion animal overpopulation crisis, should have been a no-brainer. However, officials defiantly state that their “Village Code pre-empts the County’s ordinance.” And guess what? Yep, The Animal Store is selling rabbits, the species found most often after dogs and cats in our nation’s already overburdened animal shelters, to anyone with a few bucks in their pocket.

Please politely urge the mayor of Lincolnwood and board of trustees members to enforce ordinance 11-3-18 by prohibiting the keeping of all “naturally wild animals” and to prohibit the sale of cats, dogs, and rabbits from breeders—because it’s the right thing to do. Then share this alert with everyone you know!

Jesal Patel
Mayor of Lincolnwood
847-745-4717
[email protected]

To send a message to the village’s board of trustees, please copy and paste these e-mail addresses: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected].

Please also leave a comment on the village of Lincolnwood’s Facebook page.