A local dog kennel won’t get a business licence to operate in 2014.

On March 12, the city refused to issue a business licence to D&L Kennels, based in Collettville, on the grounds it violates the city’s zoning and animal control bylaws. On March 25, Merritt’s city council upheld that refusal.

Under the zoning bylaw, a dog kennel is not a permitted land use in the city. A person can only run a dog kennel on lands in the Agricultural Land Reserve.

The city’s animal control bylaw says a person can have up to two dogs at a house, and all dogs over six months old must be licensed. Any property with three or more dogs is considered a kennel.

The issue went before city council at its regular meeting on Tuesday night, when council agreed with administration not to issue the business licence.

D&L Kennels owner Leona Ehl had a chance to appeal to council on the matter.

Ehl told council all she wants is to keep the five dogs she currently has.

“All I’m asking for is permission to keep the dogs that I have in my home until they die of old age,” she said. “One of them belongs to my sister who has Down syndrome and I don’t see how we can get rid of her dog. I have a little tiny one that’s never a nuisance to the neighbourhood.”

Besides the five she has, the rest of her dogs were stolen in January, Ehl told council.

The city and the property owner have had plenty of contact over the past decade.

The information package submitted to council prior to the meeting included letters dating back as far as 2004 regarding nuisance complaints about dogs barking and the unsightly property.

“It’s a bit disturbing that it’s gone on for so long,” Coun. Dave Baker said.

The package of information also included reference to six SPCA files on the property, though no details about the findings or nature of the visits were included. Calls to the SPCA were not immediately returned.

City of Merritt bylaw officer Bob Davis said it’s not clear how the property acquired a business licence in 2004 or how that licence was grandfathered in as kennels were never a permitted land use under the zoning bylaws in that area.

“All the files are gone. Nothing is there. That file should have been here and it’s not,” Davis said of the original business licence issuance.

The decision to shut down the kennel means the property owner is expected to comply with the two dogs per household bylaw, but did not include a formal order on the number of dogs she is allowed to keep.