A petition effort to repeal the pit bull dog ban in Salina has failed.

According to the City of Salina,  on Monday, September 23rd, the City received a referendum petition that would require the city commission to either pass an ordinance to repeal sections of the Salina City Code related to dog Breed Specific Regulations or call for a special election for voter consideration of the ordinance. For the petition to be valid, the Saline County Election Officer must validate the signatures in accordance with state law. The petition was delivered to the Saline County Election Officer on Tuesday, September 24th.

The petition would need to be signed by electors equal to 25% of those who voted in the preceding regular City election, requiring 1,391 signatures in this instance. On Monday, September 30th,the Saline County Election Officer certified that the required number of signatures was not met. Of the 1,814 signatures submitted, only 1,369 were accepted with 445 signatures being rejected. Signatures were rejected for reasons including unregistered voters, mismatched names or signatures, canceled voter registrations, and incorrect districts. This left the petition 22 signatures short of the required number.

Under state law the petitioner is not permitted to submit additional signatures to make up the shortfall. Therefore, the petition will not move forward, and the ordinance related to Breed Specific Regulations will remain in place.

The pit bull ban was enacted back in 2004. Prior to the law being passed there were 24 pit bull bite incidents in a two year span, between 2003 – 2004. Since that time, over the next 15 years there were 17.

In December of 2019 the issue was revisited again. At that time Salina City Commissioners voted 3 – 2 to not overturn the breed specific ordinance which makes the dog illegal to have within city limits.