Burke sides with puppy store, mall business grandfathered in

Clay County Commissioner Kristen Burke, who earlier expressed reservations about grandfathering in an Orange Park Mall puppy store under the county’s new animal ordinance, provided the swing vote in allowing the enterprise to continue.

During the board of county commissioners’ Oct. 25 meeting, the current business owner: Dawn Raymond, asked commissioners to grandfather in Bff Puppies, telling commissioners that the store would be forced out of business without the exemption.

In May, commissioners passed a ban on retail sales of dogs as part of enhanced animal cruelty measures.

In October, Commissioners Jim Renninger and Mike Cella said it was unfair to penalize Bff, which had already been operating at the mall when the new ordinance passed.

Renninger repeated his support of grandfathering Bff in during the Nov. 9 meeting.

“I think this ordinance was passed with a little bit of emotionalism due to the animal rescue that the county had to conduct,” he said, “but this business has never had an issue. To penalize this business for another irresponsible pet provider, I think, is not correct.”

Commissioners Wayne Bolla and Betsy Condon countered that the county spent $2 million rescuing 170 animals from what Condon described as a puppy mill and that the new ordinance was designed to prevent repeat crises.

During the Nov. 9 meeting, Condon doubled down on her opposition to allowing Bff to stay in business, citing the pet store’s past deceptive selling practices and describing the abuse of a dog at the hands of an Old Jennings Road puppy mill.

“(It) is a five-pound Yorkie,” Condon said. “Her name is Sweet P; she’s adorable. She can’t walk right because she spent eight years in a cage, and she had puppies time after time after time.”

 “I think that some of the puppies that probably come to this place are not raised in a scrupulous manner,” Condon said of the mall puppy store.

In October, Burke criticized Bff’s pricing practices, calling them deceptive.

During the November meeting, Raymond told commissioners that 74% of the puppies sold in her store were priced between $2,000 and $3,000.

Burke said that after talking to Raymond, her perspective changed.

“My concern was that people come in there, and they don’t know the price,” Burke said. “However, this is sales, so you don’t want to turn the people off immediately when they walk into the store.”

“The people that would be coming into this kind of store to buy a puppy,” she added, “would maybe pay this price as opposed to someone that wanted to go to the shelter and buy animals.”