Audio By Carbonatix
Peace has returned to the 3000 block of South Race Street.
Earlier this summer, the Cherry Hills Vista community was a hotbed of barking dogs and even louder humans, as neighbors squabbled over whether Mike Newbury and his girlfriend, Marla Leighton, should be allowed to keep five miniature dachshunds in one house (“When Neighbors Attack,” June 12).
Leighton had planned to move into Newbury’s Race Street ranch-style home so that she and Newbury could merge their human and canine families. In order to do so, they needed a variance from the Denver Department of Zoning that would allow them to have more than three dogs. But when Newbury and Leighton began approaching neighbors for their support, well, things went to the dogs.
Simmering tensions between Newbury, founder and former president of the Cherry Hills Vista Community Association, and his across-the-street neighbors, Sara and John Loss (he is treasurer of the Denver Country Club), and next-door neighbors, Carol and Chris Matthews, exploded into a month of smear campaigns, profane name-calling and competing petitions. On May 6, after ten business days of private deliberations, the Board of Adjustment for Zoning Appeals decided not to grant Newbury’s request for a variance, despite fourteen of his sixteen closest neighbors having declared their support. So Newbury and Leighton decided to let the matter drop.
But first there were a few more legal issues to clear up. Just days before the ruling, Newbury had called the Denver Division of Animal Control after he saw Sara Loss’s black standard poodle, Kramer, wandering the streets off-leash, pooping on neighbors’ lawns. The next day, Sara Loss called the same division to report that over at Newbury’s place, five dachshunds were barking.
Those canine cases hit the desk of Assistant Denver City Attorney Kory Nelson, who ultimately decided to dismiss the charge against Newbury.
“We often see barking dogs arising out of some other neighborhood situation,” he says. “It’s always difficult to establish what kind of case it is, but considering the timing and the evidence Mr. Newbury brought in from the variance hearing, we had more than a suspicion that there was a false complaint. Plus, you have to ask, at what point is a dog barking a violation of an ordinance? The code tells us that it has to happen between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. for it to be a nuisance violation. This was a Saturday at four o’clock.”
Nelson suggested the neighbors use the city’s Alternative Dispute Resolution Coordinator to help mediate the dispute. But the Losses declined, choosing to instead pay the fine for their off-leash citation.
“I tried to get this dispute into mediation to air all the bigger issues,” says Nelson, who had 137 animal-related cases on his schedule for just one day last week. “In my experience, people who really want to solve the problem, and not just hurt their neighbor, jump at the chance of mediation. With prosecution, it’s a $50 fine and a judge says don’t do it again, and that doesn’t solve anything. It only creates angry people.”
Nelson had also suggested that Denver County Court cite Sara Loss for filing a false complaint, but the court declined because it didn’t have jurisdiction to order her into court.
“There is no mechanism to bring those complainants before the court,” Nelson says. “It doesn’t have authority to demand they show, and I can’t ethically issue a subpoena in a case I know I’m going to dismiss. It’s hard enough to deal with a true barking-dog case and come out with justice without having to deal with false complaints.”
Sara Loss declined to comment on the current situation. According to neighbors, she’s complained that the barking is worse than ever. But Leighton says the noise isn’t coming from Newbury’s place, since the dachshunds frequently stay at her house these days.
At least it’s only dogs yapping — for now.
