Dog barking ordinance gets repealed on Kauai

A Kauai County bill that repealed the dog barking law took effect this week, without the mayor’s signature.

"There are some serious flaws in the law," said Councilman Ross Kagawa, who introduced Ordinance 992, formerly Bill 2590, which went into effect Thursday.

Under the barking dog ordinance, which had been in place since March 2014, if dogs barked, bayed, cried or howled incessantly for 10 minutes or intermittently for 20 minutes within a 30-minute period, the owner could get a $35 fine.

Kagawa maintains that the law violated due process rights by allowing the issuance of a citation without verification of allegations.

In an Aug. 20 letter to the Kauai County Council, Mayor Bernard Carvalho said, "After reviewing testimony for and against the barking dog ordinance, I believe that the current law needs to be improved."

One matter that the mayor said could be addressed without repealing the law was a provision through which a citation would be issued based on a single neighbor’s complaint. Carvalho said there should be more than one witness involved.

"Verification or validation of the barking dog should be made by a second neighbor or Kauai Humane Society staff," he said.

Carvalho suggested tweaking the law to limit citations to cases with at least two or three complaints.

He said he also supports placing a priority on mediation between dog owners and complaining neighbors as a means to resolution over the issuance of citations.

In addition, the mayor said he would have supported an amendment requiring complainants who do not prevail in court to reimburse dog owners for legal fees.

Council Chairman Mel Rapozo has said he plans to introduce a comprehensive noise ordinance, which will address the issue of barking dogs.

"I look forward to signing a bill in the near future that balances the need for peace and quiet in neighborhoods and contributes to our high quality of life, with practical due process considerations," Carvalho said.

Most of the testimony preceding the vote to repeal the law was in favor of holding onto the barking dog law.

"I was very disappointed (that the law was repealed), mainly because I think it will hurt many people who have a barking dog problem and now have no recourse," said Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura, who drafted the language in the barking dog law.

Yukimura said she introduced a separate barking dog bill instead of a comprehensive ordinance addressing various types of noise because "it was clearly a pervasive problem in the community based on the complaints and the requests for help that we were getting."

Due to the lengthy time it would take to draft a comprehensive noise ordinance, Yukimura said she wanted to tackle the largest problem first.