City of Decorah Wins the Case of "Who Wants To Live Next To A Rooster?"

You may remember that the city of Decorah, Iowa, took one of his residents to court over a noisy rooster. Decorah resident Ralph Van Fossen had been charged with one count of disturbing the peace and one count of keeping a bothersome animal following complaints by two of his neighbors of early morning crowing by his rooster. You can read more about the court case and the testimony from that hearing in this blog post.

What's become known by the Iowa District Court for Winneshiek County as the case of "Who wants to live next to a rooster?," Magistrate Nathan Moonen ruled (partially) against Van Fossen. The court found that Van Fossen was guilty of disorderly conduct. He has been fined $500 plus court costs.

However, Van Fossen was not guilty of keeping a bothersome animal. Decorah's ordinance (at the time) didn't include roosters in its list of bothersome animals. That ordinance only included barking dogs, cattle, horses, swine, and sheep.

Incidentally, Decorah updated the city code to ban roosters from being kept within city limits late last month. This ordinance goes into effect on January 1, 2020. Existing roosters will not be grandfathered, which is bad news for Van Fossen and his rooster.