SACRAMENTO – Assemblymember Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys) today celebrated the Los Angeles City Council’s overwhelming support of Assembly Bill 1634 – The California Healthy Pets Act – after its 12-0 vote on a resolution that officially makes the City of Los Angeles a co-sponsor of this much-needed legislation.

The bill, which will be voted on in the Assembly’s Business and Professions Committee on April 24, is largely modeled upon a successful mandatory spay and neuter ordinance that the County of Santa Cruz implemented in 1995. It would require most pet owners with a dog or cat over four months old to have their pets spayed or neutered in the effort to reduce the nearly $250 million price California pays each year to house almost one million dogs and cats and ultimately kill over half of them.

“The Los Angeles City Council’s action today should send a clear signal to all Californians that Assembly Bill 1634 is a huge step forward in the drive to combat pet overpopulation and to reduce the killing of hundreds of thousands of animals in California’s shelters each year,” said Assemblymember Lloyd Levine, who also serves as the Chair of the Assembly Select Committee on Animal Welfare. “Mandatory spay/neuter programs have proven to be smart, sensible, compassionate and effective approaches wherever they have been tried. Over the last eight years, increased spaying and neutering has already helped Los Angeles reduce euthanasia, and The California Healthy Pets Act promises to be a strong tool to help the state’s largest animal control jurisdiction do even better in the future.”

For more information on The California Healthy Pets Act, please visit www.cahealthypets.com.