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Rooster's wakeup call gets rise out of neighbors
By AMY WIMMER, Times Staff Writer SOUTH PASADENA -- Nan Edmiston lives in a city better known for its high-rise condominiums than its livestock. So when Mrs. Edmiston was awakened at 5:30 a.m. one recent morning by the quintessential cluck of life on the farm, she was puzzled. "It was a cockle doodle doo," she recalled. "And I'm thinking, wait a minute, we don't live on farmland." The sound was coming from another house on Pasadena Isle, a small neighborhood of single-family homes in South Pasadena. The matter was cleared up easily when Carole Arrowood, the code enforcement officer in South Pasadena, paid a visit on the offending household. "She said, you don't happen to have a rooster here, do you?" Moulla Chehab, the rooster's owner, said of his visit from Arrowood. Chehab, who is a waiter in Tampa, said he bought the animal for his 5-year-old daughter Hannah, who likes to visit farms. Hannah did not, as far as Chehab knows, name her pet. Chehab has a menagerie of birds in his back yard, including love birds and cockatoos. Arrowood had a problem with his two chickens as well, even though they don't make as much noise at ungodly hours. "I told him that they have to go, too," Arrowood said. South Pasadena, like other densely populated cities, has a long list of animals that property owners are prohibited from keeping on pieces of land smaller than half an acre. The list includes cattle, goats, ponies, horses, chicken, sheep or swine, including potbellied pigs. Arrowood said this particular law doesn't need to be enforced very often in South Pasadena. But Edmiston said she recalls another Pasadena Isle neighbor's rooster was evicted from the city just last year. And South Pasadena has had other bird trouble. Five years ago, the city had to outlaw feeding wild animals to prevent a local man from feeding flocks of pigeons. And in 2000, an African grey parrot named Bubba ran afowl of neighbors who accused it of cussing at them. Chehab was puzzled at the idea that one of his neighbors complained to Arrowood about the rooster. "These neighbors don't have a problem with it," he said, pointing to the west. "Those neighbors don't have a problem with it," he said, pointing to the east. He said the rooster cockle doodle doos only about a half-dozen times each morning, usually around 7 a.m. But the feisty fowl also made a fuss from the inside of the box Chehab was using to transport it to its new home. He hopes Hannah isn't too heartbroken. "When she comes home, I don't know what kind of reaction she's going to have," Chehab said. Meanwhile, Pasadena Isle neighbors can relax. The rooster's new home is in Tampa.
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From the Times South Pinellas desks |
