Posh doggy daycare Pets and Pats has been ordered to close early next year after fresh court action for operating without a resource consent at its new base.
“We won’t be moving,” business owner Angela Beer told the Herald.
She expects a resource consent to be granted before the court-ordered deadline of February 5, allowing her to operate at her new Kumeu premises in Auckland’s north-west countryside.
The Environment Court decision is the latest in a long-running saga that started Dairy Flat in Auckland’s rural north.
It was there that Pets and Pats pitched itself to Auckland’s wealthy inner suburbs, with Beer promoting it as a bucolic escape for city dogs.
Beer rented a grand manor-style house with expansive paddocks and lawns for pets shuttled out of the city in her upscale vans.
“Gorgeous groups of happy, healthy dogs ... you’ll never be a number, you’re a cherished family member” the business website said.
But the operation ran into conflict with locals, who claimed there was excessive noise, and that dogs were arriving in greater numbers - and earlier than allowed under the resource consent.
Those complaints led to two prosecutions by Auckland Council - one that stayed under wraps for years after Beer was granted interim name suppression.
Those prosecutions both resulted in guilty verdicts and fines collectively in excess of $100,000.
That court process wound up in May, by which time Pets and Pats had moved from Dairy Flat to another spacious lifestyle block.
While the company website still uses photographs from Dairy Flat to promote itself, the Herald tracked the business to its new location in Kumeū.
Pets and Pats had moved without getting the necessary resource consent. Questions from the Herald led to a fresh investigation by council - and the current court action.
Beer - who appeared on two reality television shows over a decade ago - told the Herald she would make a fresh application next week for resource consent, and she expected it would be accepted by council.
She said “we won’t be moving”.
Beer said an earlier application “was returned on the basis it was incomplete, which was arguable”. She said the council could have accepted the application and worked with the company to get more information.
“Given they chose not to do this, it has been costly and taken more time.”
Beer said she was also seeking information from council about whether it was also acting against similar businesses in Auckland. She said there were more than 200 operating and “many without consents.
“We have asked the council to look into this so it is a fair and even playing ground and also fun and safe for the dogs and their parents.”
Auckland Council team leader of investigations Paul Cowling told the Herald the company has twice sought resource consent for its new base at Kumeu but those applications were “incomplete” and not accepted.
He said no welfare issues emerged during the council’s visit to the new Kumeu location.
“If welfare issues were apparent, this would be referred to the SPCA to investigate.”
Asked about the five months that had passed since the council discovered Beer had no resource consent, Cowling said compliance investigations were a “methodical and thorough process”.
“Officers are working on multiple cases at one time, and higher priority must be given to those where there is a more urgent risk to the environment or people.”
Judge Jeff Smith said there was no dispute that a resource consent was required. “Efforts are being put into regularising the resource consent application.”
Pets and Pats is the trading name of a company called, until recently, Teddy and Friends Ltd. The Companies Office shows the company name has recently changed to In Dog We Trust Ltd.
Beer, who signs off her emails “woofs” told the Herald she had named the company after a much-loved dog but was “sick of my first baby dog’s name getting dragged through the press”.
Beer also said she was “grateful for the loyalty of all my clients”.
David Fisher is based in Northland and has worked as a journalist for more than 30 years, winning multiple journalism awards including being twice named Reporter of the Year and being selected as one of a small number of Wolfson Press Fellows to Wolfson College, Cambridge. He joined the Herald in 2004.
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