RIDGWAY — The recent Ridgway Municipal Court trial was the first in decades to seat a jury in this generally peaceable, agricultural-based San Juan Mountains town.
After a flurry of motions — including a request to call 240 witnesses — two days of testimony and a courtroom filled with the sound of videotaped roosters crowing, there was a conviction: A resident known as Planet Janet was found guilty of having roosters in a town that prohibits roosters and was fined $300.
This story of municipal rooster wrangling doesn’t end there. An appeal has been filed.
There is a vow to take this matter all the way to the state Supreme Court if necessary and to outlaw rooster “takings” on constitutional grounds in the many other Colorado communities with poultry laws.
“It’s not about me in a battle with my town. It’s about the state, the country, the planet,” said “Planet” Janet Smith, a 53-year-old chemical engineer and landscape designer. “I am not stopping until every community has the right to farm.”
Ridgway’s rooster saga began in 2008 when Smith started raising chickens for eggs in a garden behind the historic crumbling-stone commercial buildings she calls home.
Eight of her 42 fuzzball chicks grew up to be roosters. They crowed. And a handful of neighbors complained, even though Smith said she was putting the roosters in her office at night.
The next summer, the town board passed an ordinance outlawing roosters and limiting chickens to six.
Smith was cited for violating the ordinance and also for creating a nuisance. She asked for a jury trial, where she was acquitted of the nuisance charge.
Her attorney, Leslie Castro of Grand Junction, appealed the conviction and requested a new trial. The roosters were Smith’s property and the town government “took” that property in violation of her client’s state and federal constitutional rights, Castro said.
Ridgway’s interim town manager, Jen Coates, and Kathryn Sellars, the Montrose attorney hired to prosecute the case, said they couldn’t comment because of the ongoing litigation.
Smith said she will continue to have farm animals on her in-town property, including three goats and 10 ducks. She also hopes to bring roosters back.
She said she foresees a global collapse that necessitates people having their own food supplies. She raises some goats now for meat and had her chickens for eggs.
Smith is known for driving around with roosters or goats riding shotgun in her pickup. She jogs every morning with two pack goats. And she said she couldn’t bring herself to eat her pet roosters. They are currently roosting with out-of-town friends.
Smith’s attorney filed an appeal last week asking for a new trial. The municipal court is not a court of record — there is no transcript — so that necessitates an entirely new and expensive trial without any reference to the previous proceedings. An outside judge will have to be brought in, or the case will have to be moved to another county.
Beyond that, there may eventually be another case to litigate. Smith does not have the required amount of land for keeping a goat in town.
Nancy Lofholm: 970-256-1957 or nlofholm@denverpost.com
