Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 13, 1995                   TAG: 9509130017
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ROANOKE'S NO SAFE HAVEN FOR FAMILY'S PORCINE PETS

To his neighbors, they are a smelly and ugly part of Wasena.

To a Roanoke judge, they are simply "swine" - and thus prohibited within city limits under a rarely enforced ordinance.

This week in General District Court, Judge Julian Raney gave Bill and Susan Thompson 14 days to remove Dinner and Jessabelle, two Vietnamese potbellied pigs, from their home.

The ruling may come as a shock to other pig owners, who last month held up Roanoke as a safe haven for the popular pets when a Vinton woman was cited under a similar ordinance.

But after neighbors complained about unpleasant odors wafting from the Thompson yard in the 1000 block of Wasena Avenue, animal control officers charged them under an ordinance that makes it illegal to keep cows or swine as household pets in Roanoke. Goats and sheep are allowed, but only one per home.

Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Gerald Teaster conceded that the law is seldom used. In fact, it comes from the same page of the city code that makes it illegal to kill squirrels and molest songbirds within city limits.

But once charges were brought, Teaster said, "it was a clear violation of the ordinance."

Thompson said he may ask City Council to amend the 1978 ordinance that makes outlaws out of such beloved pets as Hiney, the Vietnamese potbellied pig who was bitten by a roving chow earlier this year, and Wilbur, Arnold and Charlotte - the three pigs whose owner went all the way to court before she was allowed to keep them in her Vinton home.

Emma Saunders was able to convince a judge that the Vinton ordinance was too vague in prohibiting all livestock. The Roanoke law is more precise, but Thompson said it was written before Vietnamese potbellied pigs caught on as pets.

"That ordinance was set up talking about farm pigs," Thompson said.

"These animals become part of your family. ... They stay in my living room. Any activity we do, they are in the middle of it."

When the Thompsons moved to Wasena about six weeks ago, their new neighbors were less enthusiastic about Dinner and Jessabelle, who often venture out of the living room.

"Whether they are potbellied pigs or not, they are still pigs," Scott Johnson said. "They smell bad, they look bad, and we are just offended by them."

Johnson and two other neighbors were subpoenaed to court Monday to tell Raney about their concerns.

Thompson, who said his pigs are always a hit when they make appearances at elementary schools and nursing homes, says he never had a problem with them until he moved to Wasena.

"If they were dirty, smelly animals," he said, "nursing homes and schools wouldn't have anything to do with them."