Animal shelters regulation, licensing up for hearing

Licensing and regulation of animal shelters, including controversial restrictions on mobile veterinary services, are features of a S.C. Senate bill scheduled for a committee hearing Tuesday in Columbia.

S 687 was approved in October by a subcommittee and advanced to the Senate Agriculture & Natural Resources Committee. S 687 requires that animal shelters, typically nonprofit operations, will be supervised and regulated by the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation. Shelters will be required to keep medical records for animals in their care and to “document the number of animals admitted and the method by which they exit the facility.”

Prescription drugs must be “properly labeled and prescribed by a licensed veterinarian.” Sen. Greg Hembree of Little River says this part of S 687 addresses situations where pet owners are handed pills in unlabeled plastic bags. Hembree is a member of the agriculture committee and the subcommittee that held hearings and heard testimony in five locations. Senators Kent Williams of Marion County and Ronnie Sabb of Williamsburg County, whose districts include portions of Horry County, are also on the Agriculture & Natural Resources Committee.

Limiting mobile veterinary services appears to be the most controversial aspect of S 687. “There’s consternation about that,” Hembree says. Mobile veterinary services for pets may not be “within two miles of the nearest privately owned veterinarian practice” in less urban areas and one mile in more urban areas. Earlier versions of the bill had a seven-mile restriction and “that was excessive,” Hembree says.

The distance requirements are of concern to some representatives of animal shelters. Kim Kelly, S.C. director of the Humane Society of the United States, said in an email: “The legislators purportedly tried to reach a compromise by scaling back the distance requirements for mobile clinics, but really, any restriction is undesirable and maintains the anti-competition concerns.”

Animal shelters include state, county and municipal facilities for seized, stray or abandoned cats, dogs and other animals, veterinary hospitals or clinics also operating as pounds, and facilities of humane societies, animal welfare societies or other nonprofits. Hembree, who attended the subcommittee hearings, says there is “not much pushback” on the aspects of legislation requiring “basic, very standard” records.

Shelters may continue to provide veterinary services such as sterilization, microchip implantation, vaccinations and medical services. However, S 687 limits shelters’ veterinary services only to low-income pet owners, who provide “written documentation of low-income status.” Shelters “can’t provide full service vet care to everybody,” Hembree says.

Shelters and private veterinary practices “both have a critical function in taking care of animals, that can’t take care of themselves.” From the subcommittee’s perspective, the purpose of the legislation is “to avoid problems with shelters being in unfair competition with private veterinary practices [and] to keep both entities healthy.”

The 2014 hearings illustrated that “shelters are very different depending on the area of South Carolina,” Hembree says. Shelters typically have some economic advantages in being nonprofit operations, perhaps with volunteer workers and in a municipal building.

Developing for two sessions, S 687 “is farther down the tracks” than other animal welfare legislation pending in the General Assembly. The bill, as amended, is a balanced approach and the Agriculture & Natural Resources Committee should advance S 687 to the Senate calendar for 2016.

This story was originally published November 30, 2015 at 8:31 AM with the headline "Animal shelters regulation, licensing up for hearing."