South Bay Postscripts : A Look Back at People and Events in the News : Redondo Pecking Order Leaves No Place for Chickens

Nearly 30 years after Roseanne Smith began raising chickens as pets at her Redondo Beach home, neighbors started squawking about the birds. Now the City Council has told her to get rid of them within a year.

Smith, 35, who lives on South Irena Avenue, says she can’t bear to part with her 31 hens and four roosters and will try to find a way to keep them.

The City Council said last week that she must reduce the number of birds to 12 within 30 days and to zero within 360 days. “I can’t deal with that,” Smith said after the council’s 4-0 vote last week. “I have to keep as many as possible.”

Smith said she had her four roosters surgically decrowed to appease her neighbors, and had 15 others put to sleep. If she is forced to get rid of the rest of her birds, she said she will probably have them put to sleep, too.

Even Smith’s neighbors, some of whom have complained to city officials about clucking, crowing, dust and odors, said they think the council went too far.

Most said they had hoped that Smith would be permitted to keep at least three to six of the birds.

Smith’s next door neighbor, Josie White, said she wouldn’t care if Smith were allowed to keep three hens, but she doesn’t want any roosters as neighbors. The roosters, which she said still crow, will make it possible for the hens to reproduce and expand the flock, White said.

White also has complained about the three cats and seven doves that belong to Smith’s two sisters, who share the house with her and their father. By some accounts, the women have had up to 50 hens, 19 roosters, 20 cats and 14 doves at one time during the past year.

The council order affects only the chickens, however.