Kiwi's are spending more money than ever on their animal friends.
Angela Beer and her company, which operates as Pets & Pats, were prosecuted by Auckland Council for violating resource consents.
They were fined $77,750 after pleading guilty to criminal charges, but the case could not be reported for years.
The business has now moved to Kumeu, but it will be sentenced again later this month for additional violations at the Dairy Flat property it used to occupy.
After a two-and-a-half-year legal battle to keep their identities secret, it can now be revealed that a posh doggy daycare and the high-profile entrepreneur who runs it have been prosecuted twice by Auckland Council after hundreds of complaints from neighbours.
The Herald has been attending Environment Courthearings since 2022 for Angela Maree Beer, who is the sole director and shareholder of Teddy and Friends Limited, better known as Pets & Pats.
Beer was already a reality TV star and successful creator of the feminine DIY products business Hello Dolly when she took over a friend’s small dog-walking venture around 2011 and used her marketing background to grow it into a sought-after, exclusive service.
The company focused at first on some of Auckland’s wealthier inner suburbs. These days, the company’s signature light blue “pup buses” are ubiquitous throughout the city, servicing over 50 suburbs despite marketing on its website that promotes the exclusivity of a “private canine country club”.
“As we don’t take many dogs, here you’ll never be a number, you will be a loving and cherished member of our farm family,” the company boasted of its Dairy Flat property, in the top reaches of Auckland’s North Shore.
But the seemingly explosive growth of the company over the past decade attracted the negative attention of neighbours, who complained about the noise, and city inspectors, who found that Pets & Pats had violated the terms of how the Dairy Flat property could be used.
Pets and Pats owner Angela Beer with one of the fleet of vans that collect dogs from Auckland's most exclusive suburbs.
Numerous criminal charges were filed against Beer and her company in July 2022, alleging that she had violated her resource consent 83 times between late December 2021 and the end of May the following year. The charges, under the Resource Management Act, each carried a maximum possible sentence for Beer of up to two years’ imprisonment and a $300,000 fine. The company faced a potential fine of up to $600,000.
Interim name suppression was granted for both Beer and her business early on in the legal process.
That was despite the fact that Pets & Pats had already been the subject of past media coverage because of neighbour complaints, including reporting that Beer had been under investigation by Auckland Council.
Due to a series of legal twists that followed the filing of charges, this is the first time that the court proceedings can be reported.
Neighbours fed up
The complaints about Pets & Pats - primarily about noise - go back at least five years. Over that time, 17 different neighbours have registered more than 279 complaints with the city. Some of those neighbours would later turn to the media, frustrated by the perceived slow response by code enforcement officers.
“...For the people who live with it day in, day out, it is easy to feel nothing is happening and no one cares,” one person told the Herald in 2022. “I am watching my neighbours having their confidence in the council and judicial system undermined.”
The complaints resulted at first in an attempt by Beer’s landlord to evict her, citing noise and suggesting - unsuccessfully - that she had been less-than-forthcoming about her business when she signed the lease in 2015. Beer fought the eviction notice through the Tenancy Tribunal and was eventually victorious, with landlord Barfoot & Thompson ordered to pay her $7400 to recoup legal fees.
Angela Beer with dogs on Pt Chevalier Beach in July 2015. Photo / Dean Purcell
Tribunal adjudicator Joon Yi found the noise, while interfering “with the peace and comfort of the neighbours”, wasn’t unreasonable. Three reports from acoustic testing companies were submitted to the tribunal, none of which showed noise above Auckland Council’s limit for the “rural production” zone.
But whether Pets & Pats had abided by its resource consent was another matter.
Beer would find herself on the losing end of that battle, eventually orderd to pay a $40,000 fine. The company was ordered to pay another $37,500.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, estimated the company had earned $180,000 in extra profits by ignoring resource consents over just a nine-month period. They argued that the estimate was “conservative” - and an Environment Court judge would later agree.
Promises ignored
The company had operated at the property without a resource consent for two years before one was retroactively granted in September 2017.
In the agreement, the company said it would offer “a boutique field trip activity for dogs”, with no more than 60 dogs visiting the property from 11am and 1.30pm on weekdays. An extra hour was added for winter months due to muddy conditions, so that the dogs could be bathed before they were returned to their owners. In addition, no more than 12 overnight boarders would be allowed.
Dogs were not to be exercised on the front paddock, and were to be kept away from neighbouring properties. They were to arrive only in the company’s vans so that the area wouldn’t be overburdened with traffic from owners dropping off animals.
The entrance to Pets and Pats in Dairy Flat, looking across the exercise area used by small dogs. Photo / Supplied
“Any aggressive behaviour and/or barking is quickly dealt with and, if this becomes a recurring problem, then the dog’s suitability for the facility will be reviewed,” the business promised.
“Overall, the majority of the dogs are at the premises for 90 minutes maximum per day ... As such it will have less than minor adverse amenity effects upon its immediate neighbours.”
While the dogs were allowed to play freely on the property, they were never left unsupervised, the company also stated.
Enforcement thwarted
In June 2021, Auckland Council took action - claiming that several aspects of that agreement were being ignored. Notice was sent to the business ordering it to comply with the agreed resource consent within the next month.
Two days before the deadline, the company acknowledged it had not been complying with the regulation but asked for a two-month extension so that it could apply for a revised resource consent. Curtailing its current practices, the city was told, would “significantly impact the business”.
The extension request was denied.
Compliance officers showed up at the property about five months later, in November 2021, to see if the abatement notice had been complied with. It hadn’t.
Unable to gain access to the property, the officers instead visited a neighbouring property. There they noticed more than 40 dogs at Pets & Pats before 10am; “loud and consistent noise” of dogs barking; at least five dogs jumping over fences between paddocks; and dogs rushing to the fence when the officer approached.
One month later, an officer returned and observed barking and howling, with at least five dogs making noise at the same time.
Auckland Council went to the Environment Court just before Christmas that year, seeking an interim order for the company to follow its resource consent.
Chief Environment Court Judge David Kirkpatrick denied the request but emphasised it didn’t mean he was siding with Pets & Pats long-term. An order just before Christmas would inconvenience customers who had their dogs booked during holiday travel, he said, adding that the company had not been given time to prepare a defence.
For the first half of 2022, the parties attended court-assisted mediation but to no avail. A code compliance officer returned to the property in March 2022, finding dogs outside the permitted exercise areas, including an area with no staff present. The officer noted a van with about 15 dogs arrived at 9.17am, almost two hours earlier than permitted, and two others arrived at 9.30am.
Auckland Council enforcement officers took numerous photos of doggy daycare Pets & Pats' former Dairy Flat property during a a years-long legal dispute over Resource Management Act violations.
Up to that point, the complaints, accusations and legal manoeuvring had been reported repeatedly by the Herald. That changed, however, in July 2022 after Auckland Council prosecutors filed the criminal charges.
Although prison would be an extremely unlikely outcome for such charges, it was argued that Beer’s business and her wellbeing could suffer if clients got the impression she was being treated as a criminal. She was granted interim name suppression, which ended up lasting for the duration of the case and far beyond.
Emboldened by anonymity?
Both Beer and Pets & Pats appeared for sentencing in August 2023 after entering guilty pleas to nine representative charges earlier that year. The sentencing decision, however, wasn’t finalised until a written judgment was issued nearly a year later.
During the hearing, Beer and her business had each sought a discharge without conviction and permanent name suppression. Permanent suppression was opposed by the prosecution and by lawyers for the Herald.
Pets & Pats owner Angela Beer.
Judge Kirkpatrick, in his May 2024 decision, denied both defence requests.
Prosecutors Jade Magrath and Katia Fraser sought a starting point fine of between $180,000 and $200,000 to be split between Beer and her business, with discounts then applied for their guilty pleas. It was also suggested that reparations to neighbours might be appropriate.
They argued the offending was aggravated by the “lengthy and consistent non-compliance in the face of graduated enforcement steps”, the commercial motivation behind the non-compliance, the lack of remorse and the adverse impacts on neighbours.
During the hearing, Judge Fitzpatrick was presented with eight victim impact statements from neighbours, five of which were read aloud.
“Many of the effects related to the noise of dogs barking incessantly, reducing or preventing the ability to converse outside or read, study or work inside without all of the doors and windows being closed,” the judge later noted. “The barking distresses a number of the neighbours, one of whom has sought professional assistance. They also describe issues with dogs that have escaped from the property and with the impact of the scale of the activity on traffic on local roads.”
Every neighbour who addressed the court spoke out against continued name suppression, suggesting that anonymity so far had emboldened the defendants to continue offending.
Auckland Council enforcement officers said they were restricted access to Pets & Pats' former Dairy Flat property during a year-long legal dispute over Resource Management Act violations.
Defence lawyers Bronwyn Carruthers KC and Lewis Hebden argued that the resource consent violations were “largely immaterial and the effects relatively minor”.
While the breaches were deliberate, they were not motivated by profit, they added, suggesting that it was instead out of concern for the welfare of the dogs and to stay afloat after the Covid-19 pandemic.
If the judge decided to enter a conviction, the defence argued that no fine was necessary to accompany it. They emphasised that noise was not the reason for the prosecution and suggested that deterrence would be a better fit for cases in which businesses operated with no consent at all.
In a comment to the Herald in 2022, shortly before the charges were filed and interim name suppression was granted, Beer said she had been the victim of a complaint campaign by neighbours whose overriding concern - noise - was unfounded.
She expressed frustration at having been targeted by the city when she was providing what she said was a much-needed service to inner-city dog owners whose pets wouldn’t otherwise get to experience rural life. Her service was especially important, she said, given the huge uptake in pet ownership during the pandemic.
“It’s almost like we are becoming an essential service,” she said.
No remorse
But Judge Kirkpatrick agreed with prosecutors that the offending was prolonged and showed an “apparent unwillingness” by the defendants to take steps that might have reduced the non-compliance. No remorse had been shown, he said.
He set a starting-point fine of $100,000 to be split between the defendants, reducing the combined fine to $77,750 when taking into account their guilty pleas.
A conviction, he said, would not be out of all proportion to “the serious gravity of the offending”. Likewise, he determined, the grounds had not been met for permanent name suppression.
Dogs are exercised in a paddock at Pets & Pats' former Dairy Flat property. The photo was submitted to the Environment Court during a year-long legal dispute over Resource Management Act violations.
“There may well be consequences for [the] business, but the compliance record of a business which operates under a resource consent is something that should not be withheld from suppliers to and customers of that business,” he explained.
In September 2023, after the sentencing hearing but with her identity still suppressed while awaiting the final decision, Beer was named as one of three finalists for Māori Women’s Development Inc’s annual businesswomen awards. The award category was for growth and development.
Misinformation risk
The battle for secrecy didn’t end with the Environment Court decision.
Beer and her company appealed, resulting in continued suppression for five more months until their argument could be heard last October by the High Court at Auckland under Justice Peter Andrew.
New defence lawyer Emma Priest argued the Environment Court had erred in its suppression decision by failing to adequately consider the impact of media attention on Beer and failing to consider the risk of misinformation.
Angela Beer previously saw global success with her Hello Dolly range of tools. She later started Pets & Pats.
Justice Andrew rejected the arguments in a written decision nine days after the hearing.
“There is no evidence to suggest that that business, now operating in a new location, would be significantly affected by the adverse publicity that the appellants are concerned about,” he wrote.
“The likely publication here, namely in mainstream media, can be expected to be balanced because media organisations are subject to ethical obligations of fairness.”
Priest had also argued that the victim impact statements read aloud at Beer’s sentencing were irrelevant to noise complaints and shouldn’t have been allowed, creating a risk of further misinformation. The judge acknowledged that there “may be some merit to the criticisms” about relevance.
“However, in my view, the noise complaints raised by the neighbours can, in the context of this offending, be properly considered to be one of the effects of the offending.”
Extreme hardship, necessary for permanent name suppression, had not been met, he said. He ordered suppression to lapse on November 6 last year, allowing the defendant three more weeks to prepare.
It still wasn’t over, though.
New charges, new suppression
Despite the second consecutive judicial decision siding with the principles of open justice, there was another development in the ongoing case against Beer that made continued suppression necessary for a completely different reason: fair trial rights.
Earlier in 2024, Auckland Council had filed a new tranche of charges against Beer and the company alleging they continued to violate the Resource Management Act at the same Dairy Flat property from June 2023 to April 2024, while awaiting the sentencing decision.
Auckland Council enforcement officers took numerous photos of doggy daycare Pets & Pats' former Dairy Flat property, including the tennis court where dogs were sometimes kept, during a years-long legal dispute over Resource Management Act violations.
The New Zealand Criminal Procedure Act bars any new reporting on a defendant’s prior offences if fresh charges are pending. Beer and Pets & Pats also sought interim name suppression for the new charges.
The new charges mirrored in large part what had been alleged earlier. Compliance officers continued to visit neighbours, noting that dogs were in areas of the property they weren’t supposed to be and more dogs remained at the property than were allowed. It was noted that officers were not allowed onto the Pets & Pats property, considered another breach.
Neighbours’ complaints about noise also continued. They used terms such as unfathomable, horrendous, non-stop, intolerable, off the charts and incessant. But prosecutors again acknowledged that the noise was not the basis for the charges.
Beer returned to the Environment Court on December 19 and entered guilty pleas to the new charges. Lawyer Lewis Hebdon asked Judge Sheena Tepania to allow Beer’s name to remain secret through the financially difficult holiday season, citing extreme hardship.
Environment Court judges Sheena Tepania (left) and David Kirkpatrick have both issued name suppression decisions over the lengthy court history of Angela Beer and Pets & Pats. Photo / Myjanne Jensen
Beer also initially expressed concern that suppression being lifted could result in a bank loan falling through. However, she abandoned that argument in court. Judge Tepania expressed reluctance to consider those grounds anyway, stating that she didn’t want to subvert good faith between a lender and borrower.
The judge quoted extensively from the recent High Court decision rejecting permanent suppression for the previous charges. She denied interim suppression but allowed the defendant time to consider an appeal, which the judge pointed out would take Beer past the holiday season.
That period has now passed. No appeal was filed.
Beer was set to be sentenced on the latest charges in April, but the hearing was adjourned due to a weather event. She and the company are now set for sentencing later this month.
Beer will again face up to two years’ imprisonment and a $300,000 fine, while Pets & Pats could be on the hook for a fine of up to $600,000.
Pets & Pats moved out of the Dairy Flat property last June, relocating to a large rural property in Kumeu, West Auckland.
So far, things seem to be going much more smoothly at the new property, with no neighbour complaints, judges noted at hearings in October and December.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
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