Marengo set to allow snakes in town

MARENGO — Residents of Marengo may comment on a proposal to allow pet snakes to be sold and kept in Marengo during a public hearing June 26.

The City of Marengo proposes to strike the words “boa constrictors” from its list of prohibited exotic animals in Chapter 56 of the City Code.

The City Council will vote on a resolution to amend the ordinance during its next meeting, June 26 at 6 a.m. at Marengo City Hall.

Dylan Pritchard, owner of Corn Fed Frags on Eastern Avenue, asked the council in March to allow the sale of snakes in his shop. The council tabled the issue in April until it could question Pritchard further.

Pritchard said in March that the snakes he wants to sell can’t live in the wild in Iowa because of the weather. Iowa Code 717F prohibits the keeping of venomous snakes and reticulated pythons, anacondas and African rock pythons, but not the constrictors that Pritchard wants to sell.

Marengo’s Ordinance 56 currently prohibits any poisonous, venomous, constricting or inherently dangerous member of the reptile or amphibian families including rattlesnakes, boa constrictors, pit vipers, crocodiles and alligators.

“I’m the only pet store in Iowa not selling snakes,” Pritchard told the City Council during a May 22 city council meeting.

Pritchard said he sells snake care items so he knows snakes are being kept in Marengo already.

Councilman Bill Kreis was on the council when it passed the exotic animals ordinance. “It was for larger animals,” he said. Kreis wasn’t thinking of snakes at the time.

“From a retail side, I’m for it,” Kreis said in May. But he’s had people contact him about it. The thought of snakes drives them nuts, he said.

Even if a snake escapes, which is unlikely, it can’t survive in Iowa’s temperatures, Pritchard said.

Police Chief Ben Gray said during the June 12 City Council meeting that the police department will not be wrangling snakes. If someone calls police about an escaped snake, he’ll tell them the same thing he tells people who call about bats: there are pest control people to take care of that.

If a resident reports a loose snake, police can call Pritchard to take care of it, Pritchard told the council in May. “I get calls all the time,” he said.

His phone number is on his building and on Google.