David Grimes Offers to Help with Sarasota Chicken Enforcement

Resourceful humor columnist David Grimes, possibly fearful of the trajectory of print media, is testing the waters with a possible career change as chicken cop. Of course, chicken enforcement in Sarasota may not have much of a future if some other communities are any indication.

Seattle is apparently a hip city somewhere left of Chicago that is best known for the Space Needle, a large object loosely based on the parachute jump at Coney Island. Seattle recently increased the number of chickens residents can have from three to eight --probably a desperate effort to retain work for their chicken enforcers. They must be trying to get to a number of hens high enough to provoke a reaction from neighbors, most of whom are employed as extras on Grey's Anatomy.

And those assigned to chicken enforcement in Fort Collins Colorado are thinking of trading places with Maytag repairmen -- out of 12,000 animal control calls in 2009 only 3 were chicken related. Other calls were for oxygen for chickens too rapidly relocated from Florida.

Cary, North Carolina has had similar dismal results keeping chicken enforcers employed -- less than .3% of their animal control calls were chicken related. Grimes only hope is that Sarasota is significantly more dysfunctional than dozens of other cities that allow backyard hens.