Pet Shop Noise

There's sort of a weird story of NIMBYism going on in Berkeley and that is that a shelter is being kicked out of Solano Avenue due to the usual reasons-- noise, smell, and dirty streets-- except in this case, the shelter is for pets. The place that's being kicked out is the nonprofit Milo Foundation and their sin is of barking animals, excessive dog shit, and the smell of piss wafting through the air. In other words, their being kicked out for being a little too much like Duboce Park.

The Milo Fondation basically takes unwanted pets, houses them, and tries to find them owners. Volunteers house the pets until owners are found so according to the foundation, there were never really that many pets on the grounds to begin with. That, apparently, was too many. As soon as the foundation set up shop a little over half a year ago, neighbors and businesses started complaining.

To help alleviate problems, the foundation agreed to make changes to the building but the zoning board said it wouldn't matter as they ruled what the foundation had going was a kennel. Kennel's are verboten on Solano Avenue. A compromise was tried but nobody was budging. Says the awesomely named Zippy Collins, president of the Thousand Oaks Neighborhood Association, "This is Berkeley, after all. Everyone has so much self-righteous indignation. The neighborhood was totally divided on this."