The Los Angeles City Council is set to vote on a ban on rodeos on Tuesday.
The proposal has been floating around City Hall for the last three years and was introduced by Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who cites animal safety as a main concern, saying that rodeo animals are tortured and abused with a variety of instruments.
Animal rights activists side with Blumenfield, arguing that horses, bulls, steer and calves are “chased, wrangled, roped and tormented for spectacle and so-called entertainment.”
“If you’re going to have an animal that’s bucking unnaturally and painfully, we’re saying you shouldn’t do that [because] that’s obviously cruel,” Blumenfield said outside City Hall on Tuesday. “And if you’re going to yank an animal down to the ground unnaturally, that’s obviously cruel.”
Councilmember Monica Rodriguez opposes Blumenfield’s proposal; instead, she is looking to carve out protections for “cultural events,” she says, including Charrería, the national sport of Mexico and a traditional equestrian tradition in Mexican and Western United States communities.
“Everyone has come together to advocate for the protection of some of these treasured events,” Rodriguez said. “No one is advocating for any level of abuse … everyone wants to make sure that they can maintain their cultural practice while ensuring the health, welfare and safety of all animals.”
According to officials with the California Rodeo in Salinas, which operates the largest rodeo in the Golden State, the language of the ban’s language is “broad” and that the ban would be detrimental to “other areas that impact the western way of live and … events that include livestock.”
Dozens of horseback riders were seen in downtown Los Angeles in protest of the proposed ban as City Council members began discussing the matter on Tuesday morning.