On July 18, 2024, the City of Los Angeles released a draft of a proposed ordinance that would ban rodeo and bull-riding events. If the ordinance passes, the following activities will be banned in the City of Los Angeles:
“Bareback Bronc Riding, Saddle Bronc Riding, Bull Riding, Calf Roping, Steer Wrestling, Team Roping, or any other activity that involves physically wrestling an animal to the ground, roping an animal, or attempting to ride and remain mounted on a bucking animal.”
A link to the full ordinance can be found at the following link: https://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2020/20-1575_misc_7-17-24.pdf
The first step in the legislative process will be a public hearing at the City Council’s Neighborhoods and Community Enrichment Committee, chaired by Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, before heading to the full City Council for consideration. We anticipate the Committee hearing will take place in the coming weeks, most likely after late August.
A previous proposal by Councilmember Bob Blumenfield to ban specific pieces of rodeo equipment – all to ban rodeo events in the City of Los Angeles – was shelved in December 2023 because the poorly crafted ordinance would outlaw other events, including equestrian events, in Los Angeles. Councilmember Bob Blumenfield then changed tactics, shifting to seeking a ban on specific activities essential to rodeo events and bull-riding events.
At a December 2023 public hearing on the proposed activity ban, the Council Chambers were packed with a multi-cultural coalition of Black cowboys and cowgirls, Latino rodeo and Charreria participants, and other supporters of rodeo and bull-riding events. During public testimony, most speakers expressed their strong opposition to any type of ban on rodeo events, and pushed back on false assertions by rodeo ban proponents that rodeo events were a form of “animal cruelty.”
Regional and national rodeo and bull-riding organizations and enthusiasts, including the historic cross-section of groups represented by the Western Sports Industry Coalition, have renewed their push to defeat this ordinance that would take rodeo and bull-riding in the City of Los Angeles.