Coral Springs, FL Animal Ordinances: Pet Store Rules (2026)

Section 4-28, adopted by Ordinance No. 2015-116 on September 2, 2015, prohibits any pet store in Coral Springs from displaying, selling, trading, delivering, bartering, leasing, renting, auctioning, giving away, transferring, or otherwise disposing of a dog or cat, regardless of the animal's age. The ban applies to every retail establishment open to the public that sells or transfers dogs and/or cats, unless it qualifies for a specific exemption. Those exemptions cover animal shelters, animal rescue organizations, a shelter or rescue operating out of or in connection with a retail store, and hobby breeders, defined as anyone who causes no more than one litter of a dog or cat per calendar year.

A pet store may sell animals sourced from a hobby breeder or its own limited in-house breeding, but only if it complies with the section's certificate-of-source rules. Every dog or cat offered for sale must have a certificate of source posted within three feet of its enclosure identifying where the animal came from, and a copy must go to the buyer. Falsifying a certificate of source is a separate violation. Pet stores that already held an active city business tax receipt when the ordinance took effect were given 30 days to come into compliance with the certificate requirement, and hobby breeders selling through an exempt channel must keep birth and veterinary records for at least three years and make them available to the city on request.