The capital of Iceland is a city called Reykjavik. It's a fairly modern city
They have electricity and everything, but I'll tell you something. They don't have
normality
Until 2006 dogs were banned from entering the city and that's not normal. In fact, it's racist.
It's dog-scrimination
So when I first heard of it, I was amazed. I couldn't believe it was true
But it is and more people should know about it because it's such a strange story. This is that story
In 1924 Reykjavik was still a small fishing town
But it was the largest settlement in the country and it was clear to local authorities Reykjavik
Would one day be a large city - as the capital of Iceland with a rapidly growing population. And so it was on this year
They decided to make appropriate changes in preemption for Iceland's first city
For some reason they decided that a city is no place for dogs
and so dogs were banned
a ban that was enforced!
Anyone in the whole of Reykjavik to own a dog would be ordered to hand it over or face arrest
We can't know for sure why it was decided Reykjavik would be better off without dogs
But at the time much of a town's population lived in overcrowded slums
Overrun with rats are littered with all kinds of waste
This attracted countless stray dogs, who became quite a problem as they were always loud and always hungry
Just like your mother.
It's possible the people of Reykjavik just got so sick of stray dogs. They decided to just ban all dogs
whatever the reason authorities made short work of local dogs, driving them into the countryside
For the next 60 years. It was completely illegal to own a pet dog
And any stray dog to enter Reykjavik would be sent away
in one of the worst ever cases of dog-scrimination the city was almost entirely dog free
Save for a handful of work dogs who required special permits
their owners had the permits not the dogs themselves
They're just not capable of filling out applications
With the streets dog free cats flourished and Reykjavik came to be known as the city of cats
The situation would remain this way until 1984
When in April of a year the ban was partially lifted following a bizarre scandal
not long before a man tried to enter the city with his dog, Lucy
when police demanded he hands over the dog he refused and the case went to court
if that man had been an ordinary citizen the case would likely have flown under the radar
But he was Albert Gudmundson, Minister of Finance for the Icelandic government
a member of government was arrested for owning a dog and eventually found guilty being ordered to pay a fine of
58,000 Icelandic Króna
It's evolved into a highly publicized scandal
with almost all of the 27 people who live in Iceland siding with him.
In due time laws were changed, allowing locals to own a dog as long as they had a special permit
However, it was only in 2006 where the ban was fully lifted, ending 82 years of discrimination against some of Europe's finest dog people
It would be nice to think Humanity has moved past such a thing
But they clearly haven't because there's a village in New Zealand currently trying to ban cats.
That village is Omaui
A small and remote settlement on the country's south coast
its surrounding area is home to a number of rare birds that local cats keep massacring
So the solution village authorities have come up with is to ban people from buying new cats and simply waiting until they die out
This might seem like a harsh measure but cats really are fluffy murderers and not to be trusted
Every year in the United States cats kill 4 billion birds and 22 billion other animals
The point I'm trying to make
I don't even know