Fred Connors, owner of the cafe/art gallery/salon FRED, has become the stylish new spokesman for keeping backyard hens in Halifax. Just two months after Connors transformed a “dilapidated crack house” into an urban farmhouse with a self-contained chicken coop, the city served him with a “Notice to Comply” with the bylaw prohibiting hens in residential areas. He’ll face legal action if he doesn’t relocate his seven chickens by August 6, but Connors says the flock is here to stay.
Connors and his partner Joel Flewelling live just two blocks from FRED. The proximity of their flock to their cafe allows them to reduce the miles their food travels. The hens feast on scraps from the cafe kitchen and produce the eggs used in the cafe’s baked goods. Connors uses the flock’s manure as fertilizer for his backyard garden. Herbs and vegetables from the garden end up in salads and entrees at the Agricola Street cafe. Connors says his food system is “not radical. It’s just common sense.”
District 14 councillor Jennifer Watts says there is a small community of people like Connors, raising hens in their backyards. “If they are cared for properly, the problems associated with them, such as rats, can be controlled,” says Watts about urban chickens. The Peninsula Community Council will meet in September to review a staff report, taking an in depth look at the urban chicken issue. A public hearing may follow, if council considers amending the Land Use By-Law to permit urban hens.
Connors hopes the city’s legal action against him will bring awareness to the importance of food security and producing high quality food locally. But there appear to be some communication barriers. “I was deleted by the mayor on Facebook as a friend,” he exclaims. “This is so Grade 3.”
This article appears in Jul 29 – Aug 4, 2010.
Peter Kelly deleted Fred as a friend on facebook? Coast, you should do a follow up interview with Peter to see if he wants to explain that. If true, its worth of ridicule, particularly since what Fred is doing is promoting local foods and education about where our food comes from.
I for one would be *very* disappointed in Peter Kelly if this truly is the case. A person of such high esteem, experience, and maturity to hold the office of mayor of one of Canada’s oldest cities cant possibly be so petty.
Fred is the fellow that when he tired of raising chickens in the country, simply opened the coop and let them “free range” into the mouths of the local foxes.
Fred needs to thank god for the`CBC beating this drum every day for the last week and making him a hero to the ultra-trendy urban chicken types. The fact that, as Mr. Luthor notes, he disposed of his last batch of chickens by donating them to the foxes on the South Shore means he needs to be brought up on charges of cruelty, not lionized as a crusader.
I understand the mayor had a change of heart and re-friended Fred. There’s more to this issue than just keeping chickens. It’s about the ridiculous authority the byawl enforcement office has to push you around if they get just one call from any crackpot that wants to complain about almost anything you do. Remember folks, chickens are NOT PROHIBITED on the peninsula. There’s not a single mention of poultry, chickens or livestock anywhere in the bylaws for the peninsula. So what they operate on, is that anything not expressly permitted is potentially banned if they get a complaint. Yes it’s true, and it’s ridiculous. Tell me if they would take action against a bird feeder, or a pet potbelly pig, or how about dogs that poop in parks, etc. The city has WAY too much authority in this. They are coming down hard on people who enjoy a harmless hobby, because a few crackpots feel they should complain. It’s wrong, wrong, wrong. Email or call your councilor about this. It’s time to stick up for your rights as a resident and taxpayer of this city to enjoy a simple and harmless hobby if you want to, without fear of reprisal from government officials who are paid by your tax dollars.
Ryan – Fred Connors is promoting himself, always has been and always will as long as his customer interviews him 2-3 times a week on CBC Halifax. He spends too much time looking for ways to appear in any media organ here or anywhere else.
Hello Stephanie Domet, can we please have a ‘No Fred Connors’ month or year starting August 1 2010, and next time he utters the words ‘There is a world food crisis’ please have the technician blow a raspberry or have a giggle track ready.
And get out a bit more, your circle of friends is far too small. There is life outside the Sarah,Agricola, North triangle.
Fred, time for you to get beyond Grade 3, no matter how ‘stylish’ you or your chickens are.
Fred’s ‘outlaw chickens’ are only the most visible flock of urban hens, and they certainly won’t be the last, even if he is eventually forced to relinquish them.
There is a growing movement of folks who want to keep backyard hens here in the HRM. The city council will change the bylaw. They won’t have much choice. The ‘backyard hen’ issue is part of a much larger and well-established move to more local food which itself is, in part, driven by a number of intertwined global issues including oil depletion, climate change and food security.
I think the backyard hen issue will be resolved in exactly the same way that the Sunday shopping issue was resolved a few years ago. We will go ahead and break the law until the law is changed.
Louise Hanavan lost her chickens a few years ago because the city labeled them a ‘nuisance’ and proceeded against her on those grounds. There was not at the time, and as far as I’m aware still is not, a bylaw specifically prohibiting the keeping of a few backyard hens. The current bylaw used to prohibit backyard hens is compaint-driven and open ended and it needs to be changed to accommodate the keeping of backyard hens.
As anyone who has ever planted a garden or maintained a bird feeder in this city will tell you, ‘free range’ cats and buried cat shit are far more of a nuisance to the community at large than a few hens penned in a backyard coop. Does that mean that cats should be outlawed? Not necessarily but then why outlaw a few hens that would have almost no impact on the neighbours? It makes no sense.
Another objection to backyard hens that I am hearing frequently as this issue gathers steam is that hens will attract rats. Hello? This has been a major port city for centuries. There are already lots of rats running around Halifax and Dartmouth, in case folks haven’t noticed, and each new construction project on the waterfront (King’s Wharf) sends them scurrying to find new homes. You get more rats attracted to a poorly designed compost pile than you will ever get attracted to a backyard chicken coop with a couple of hens resident.
I fully support Fred Connors in keeping backyard hens and in making this effort to challenge an outdated bylaw. This is just the beginning.
I’m not sure which part is more ridiculous: Peter Kelly deleting Fred as a “facebook friend”, or the fact that Peter has a “Mayor Peter Kelly” facebook profile. Talk about an egg-before-the-chicken conundrum.
Aren’t there farmers out there selling free range eggs from their free range chickens? Is it our job to take over their incomes by raising chickens in our back yards? check out the farmers market folks.If we all wanted to raise chickens, why not live in the country where it’s permitted? We should all be trying to eat locally by supporting our existing farmers.As for trying to save the environment , PLEASE!!!! Perhaps we should also look at what we’re flushing into the environment i.e. toxic chemicals(hair dyes?????) There is more than one issue here.
if fred conners isnt in the news or television,he starts to self promote,he uses the media like he uses his so called friends and customers…he is crass,loud and suffers from ‘SMALL” man status….please,lets ignore this guy,he needs to go away
i support keeping backyard hens, but fred is such a media-whore…enough already
As long as there are things to talk about, I will probably talk. Tired of hearing what I have to say? I’ll shut the fuck up when other people start talking about what they care about in a manner that moves things forward. Media whore? Yup! I love a camera, a mic and an audience whether or not you give a shit about what I have to say. When I don’t like someone on tv, I turn it off. When I am not interested in reading about someone, I skip to the next article. Isn’t that what normal people do?
Fred Connors
As long as I have something to say, I probably will. If you want me to shut the fuck up, then have something to say in a manner that moves things forward, and I’ll listen. Media whore? Yup! I love a camera, a mic and an audience. If I am watching someone on tv I don’t like, I shut it off. If I am faced with an article about someone I don’t like, I skip to the next one, not torture myself. Isn’t that what normal people do?
oops! For all who hate what I have to say, there are 2 versions!
chickens belong on a farm.far from dense human populations.diseases people.look at those shit hole countries with their health records.move forward not backwards.this is the same mentality people have against inocculations or alternative medicines.come on
There is a growing movement of folks who want to keep backyard hens here in the HRM.
there is also a growing movement to sell unpasturized milk.does that make it a legitimate cause or worth pursuing.
our regulations have made our communities the healthiest in the world.thats why these stupid ideas come into play.
Go Fred! I’m with you from BC! You could have your chickens in the downtown of Vancouver.
http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/socialplannin…
Errrr….xSIXXESx…”healthiest communities in the world”? Inoculations and all? Let’s see, North Americans are probably the most obese, overweight people on the planet. The percentage of people afflicted with asthma in North America keeps on going up and up (ironically because we are too clean). We eat sterile food and pound pills for every real and imagined ailment. When we succumb to dozens and dozens of diseases brought on by our sick lifestyles, we have an industrialized techno-medicine system ready to keep us “alive”…sort of.
Keep on holding on to that fond, delusional thought that we have the healthiest communities in the world. It’s in keeping with your idea that we’ll never run out of cheap oil.
Do you vote? Please say you don’t.
it’s quite sad how rude and cruel people can be which serve no progression to a greater good.
I commend Fred Connors for his efforts, besides any allegations of self-promotion and media-obsession, he ultimately is making the city a better place, if you do a deed with the intent of self-promotion, the deed is still done and ultimately it’s making things better.
If you want to criticize, I’d suggest walking a mile in his shoes, I’d be glad listening to someone brag about the positive changes they’ve made in the community, then hear the ignorant slander from someone who just sits on the sideline…
I’d love to hear a more intelligent debate than people just attacking someone who’s vocal about the successfully positive influences they make in the community… He certainly is a personality, he certainly talks a lot, but he walks the walk. He does a lot of great things in this community, It’s just sad how people try and take that away or devalue it simply because the man has an ego.
I’m proud of you Fred, and so is the greater community. Continue to do what you do, ignorant remarks like these fall on deaf ears, I’m proud to have vocal, aggressive community leaders like you who stand up for beliefs and principals that ultimately we all should follow… I don’t mind your ego, because what you boast are positive changes that make the community better.
Perhaps before we slander people we should ask those that have been impacted by that very person… Ask some of the inner-city youth who he counsels and advises what THEY think of Fred Connors, ask the not-for-profit organizations who rely on Fred for sponsorship and donations to raise money for important community charities and programs…
It’s sad how people are so quick to judge when really they know so little…
some of us do lots for the community, but we don’t blow our own horns. we do things under the radar and don’t need adulation and constant ego-stroking
If Fred keeps chickens, they would not be “urban” , they’d be “urbane”.
our water,air are clean.i do not see rampant diseases such as in other countries,where livestock are raised in dense populated areas.our life expectancy is also higher in the west.
as you say yourself ‘ironically because we are too clean’.sure it has some down fall.nothing is perfect.but you know as well as i do that sanitation prevents more disease then it causes.
so lets add more filth to our communities so we can prevent disease,which in turn make our communities healthier.is that what you are saying RID.probably because you beleive in some homeopathic medicine or some other foolish healing crap that doesn’t work.
as for the price of oil, that is dictated by market demand.as for running out of oil,do not think so.not even close to running out.
so RID i can probably guess who you vote for with all that bullshit, fear mongering, left-wing crap you spew.so stop voting for that party before their ideas destroy this great country and our way of life.