Should Pit Bulls Be Banned in Aurora? Voters to Decide in November.

Aurora's back-and-forth ban on pit bulls will be weighed yet again by voters later this year after members of the Aurora City Council passed a resolution on Monday night, July 8, to put the controversial issue on the November ballot.

In March of this year, a judge from the 18th Judicial District ruled in favor of reinstating Aurora's breed ban on pits after it was repealed and tossed out by the council in 2021. The ban was first put in place in 2005, and voters were able to keep it going through a 2014 referendum.

In 2021, however, the Aurora council decided to follow in Denver's footsteps after the Mile High City decided to repeal its own pit bull ban in November 2020. However, the Aurora decision prompted an independent lawsuit from a resident named Matt Snider, which led to the district court ruling.

The judge's reasoning: Aurora's city charter code requires that any ordinances submitted to residents by way of a resolution or referendum be barred from being "revived, repealed, amended or passed except by electoral vote."

Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky, the pit bull resolution's sponsor, had pulled her proposed ballot question from a previous vote after receiving some negative feedback over its wording. She asked Pete Schulte, public safety client manager with the Aurora City Attorney's Office, to explain why the question was worded the way that it was during Monday's council meeting and to talk about how Aurora got back on the pit bull ban-wagon.

"I have gotten a lot of emails from the public stating that they're worried with the way it's worded," Jurinsky explained. According to the councilwoman, residents have told her they are "concerned" about Aurora's current pit bull ban being repealed by voters due to confusing language.

"It has come to my attention that it has to be worded this way," Jurinsky said. "And I would like to turn it over to Pete Schulte to give that explanation to the public, because there is grave concern about the wording." 
According to Schulte, in order for Aurora to do a pit bull-focused ballot initiative, the city had to go back and amend the "old language" from before the 2021 ban repeal. This meant looking at how things were worded in 2014, when Aurora residents overwhelmingly voted in favor of a pit bull ban.

"There was the pitbull ordinance [in 2005], then it got submitted to a vote for the people, then there's changes in 2011, there were changes in 2020, all that stuff," Schulte told councilmembers. "What happened in court [in March 2024] was the current ordinance that you guys have repealed everything [on] back in 2020 that went into effect in 2021, that was determined to not be valid. So what we are now under the city code, what it should be, is the ordinance that was passed in 2011...so everything you did before 2020."

Under the old language, three different dog breeds were prohibited in Aurora: Pit Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier and Staffordshire Bull Terrier.

"To make it correct for the vote of the people, we have to include those three breeds in the ballot question, which I think was [the reason for] a lot of the confusion," Schulte said of Jurinsky's feedback.

Seven out of Aurora's eleven city councilmembers took part in the vote to pass the ballot resolution on Monday night, with it being pushed through unanimously during an impromptu "virtual" session held behind closed doors. The council meeting was taken to the back and brought online after protesters hijacked the proceedings in an effort to spotlight the shooting death of unarmed Black man Kilyn Lewis at the hands of Aurora Police in May. A resolution sponsored by Councilmember Alison Coombs had been rejected by the council moments earlier, which called for an apology and offer of "condolences" to Lewis's family for what happened. Councilmembers Crystal Murillo and Coombs — the only ones who voted against removing the apology resolution — chose to stay up front with the protesters during the virtual session.

While the judge's ruling from March on the pit bull ban is still technically "on appeal," Schulte said the door has now been left wide open for local voters to once again decide on the issue. He believes language and other specific details will be "moot points" once everything is said and done — but that doesn't make them any less important.

"We have to start it out with, 'Shall the people of Aurora, Colorado, agree that the restricted breed ban in the City of Aurora code be repealed, thereby allowing Aurora citizens to own an American Pit Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier and Staffordshire Bull Terrier dog within the city limits of Aurora, Colorado," Schulte said.

The ban will come before Aurora voters in the November 5 election.