Tempe, AZ Animal Ordinances: Pet Groomer Rules (2026)

Tempe folds cross-connection control into its adopted 2024 International Plumbing Code rather than a stand-alone pet-business ordinance, so the operative rule for a grooming shop sits in the plumbing amendments at Chapter 8, Article VI of the Tempe City Code. 2 lists animal grooming shops alongside veterinary hospitals, morgues and mortuaries as facilities where the water supplied to the site could be contaminated by backflow, so each must install a Secondary Reduced Pressure Principle Backflow Prevention assembly as close as practicable to the point of service delivery.

The companion cross-connection article, Chapter 33, Article V, routes that same category of premises through the Public Works Department: Section 33-103 requires the assembly to be approved by the department, installed at the user's expense, and specified on the construction plans before a building permit issues, and Section 33-104 bars any bypass around the device and requires it to sit at the service connection or property line. If an assembly is missing, removed, bypassed, or a cross-connection is found on the premises, Section 33-109 lets the department shut off water service until the defect is corrected, restoring it only after the condition is fixed and, in non-emergency cases, on twenty days' written notice.

Separately, Tempe's Zoning and Development Code does not regulate day-use pet grooming as its own land-use category. Its definition of "Kennel" at Section 7-102 expressly excludes "pet grooming facilities which do not keep animals overnight" from the kennel classification, so a walk-in groomer avoids the Use Permit that Table 3-202A requires for an Animal Kennel in most commercial districts; a groomer that boards animals overnight crosses into kennel territory and needs that permit instead.