California Riding Magazine • February, 2008

Knee Deep and Getting Deeper
Los Angeles based stables advocate horse licensing to help deal with developing problems.

by Rebecca Sparenberg

Owning a horse business in Los Angeles has never been for the faint of heart, but lately things have been just plain mucky. “We are having a problem with manure removal,” explains Andrew Mikiel, owner of Rockin W Ranch in Shadow Hills, a suburb of LA. “The city isn’t doing anything to help us; partly because the city doesn’t realize how many horses there are in the city. They think there are a few dozen, when really there are hundreds.”

Mikiel is one of several ranch owners in the Los Angeles area that are requiring his boarders to license their horses. Rockin W is a “boutique” barn that caters to all disciplines and offers a wide variety of stabling options for boarders. Mikiel prides himself on his facility’s warm and welcoming atmosphere; an ambiance he doesn’t want to see disturbed by the rising costs and stresses of horse keeping in Los Angeles.

The city of Los Angeles uses equine licensing as a way to census the number of horses residing within the city limits. According to Mary Benson, an equine activist that has been at the fore front of the horse licensing issue, the city also uses licensing as an economic indicator of how large the horse keeping business is in LA.

Officially Los Angeles’ Municipal code (section 53.15.1) requires any resident that owns a horse and keeps a horse, pony, donkey, burro or mule 12 months of age or older to license their equine. Equine licenses cost $14 per year. The money collected from equine licenses is deposited into a fund under the Recreation and Parks Departments and is used to maintain public trails and equestrian parks.

Many stable and horse owners feel the funds generated by equine licensing are being poorly distributed. “The city only maintains trails that are dedicated, and there are only 53 miles of dedicated trails in Griffin Park and three miles at Hansen Dam,” explains Benson. “None of the money goes to the city’s Departmental Air Rescue Team (DART, an emergency response unit that is trained to deal with equestrian emergencies and rescues) or rescue horses at the city’s adoption center.”

However there are other benefits. As long as a private horse owner has a licensed horse on their property, the city will not grant their neighbors zoning permits to build within 75 feet of the horses. This provides some agricultural zoning protection for horse keepers. Without this protection residents can build next to a private horse facility, and then demand the horse be removed because they don’t care for the sounds and smells associated with horses.

Also any Los Angeles horse owner with a licensed horse is legally eligible for curbside manure pick up.

Why Are Stables Still Struggling?

Stables are not eligible for curbside manure pick up. Boarding facilities and training stables pay a permit fee to the Department of Building and Safety to legally operate in the city. Because of this, most horses boarded at private stables in LA. are not licensed.
Benson says the real “kicker” for Los Angeles stables is that the last nursery within the city that accepted horse manure to make their own compost piles just closed.

“It’s already very expensive to run a stable in this area, and board is pricey,” says Mikiel. “This year we are also expecting a 33 percent increase in the cost of water. If we (horse and farm owners) don’t start pulling together and addressing the issues, before long there isn’t going to be any feasible way to keep horses in this area.”

Mikiel, along with Benson, Rockin W Ranch’s barn manager and western trainer Johnny Higginson and Dale Gibson of Gibson Ranch, hopes to collect over 300 licenses by March. They’re asking other horse owners and stables to join them.

“We are forming our own group,” explains Mikiel, who strongly encourages everyone in the area to license their horse. “We are contacting everyone we can so we can all pull together. Right now no one is licensing their horses, so there is no public outcry about where the money goes and how it’s regulated. The manure issue is just one of the many issues we hope to address. We hope to give horse owners more of a voice in LA.”

For more information on horse licensing e-mail Andrew Mikiel at amikiel@hotmail.com or visit City of Los Angeles Department of Animal Services online at www.laanimalservices.org, and download an equine license application.