Beaufort County, SC Animal Ordinances: Pet Store Rules (2026)

Section 14-36 targets informal and impulse animal sales rather than licensed retail. It bars selling, trading, bartering, auctioning, leasing, renting, giving away or commercially displaying any live animal, pet or livestock on a roadside, public right-of-way, public property, commercial parking lot or sidewalk, or at a flea market, fair or carnival, and separately bars using an animal as an inducement to buy an unrelated product or service, closing off free-with-purchase animal promotions. It also bars selling or giving away any animal under four weeks of age, except when the animal is surrendered to BCAS or to a licensed pet rescue organization, protecting animals weaned too early.

Subsection (d) then exempts licensed pet shops, commercial kennels, county animal services facilities and licensed pet rescue organizations from all of the section's requirements, so a properly licensed brick-and-mortar pet store may sell animals from its premises; the county has not adopted a puppy-mill-style retail ban forcing stores to adoption-only models. S. S. Fish and Wildlife Service under § 14-36(e), layering state and federal wildlife-trade oversight on top of the county's location rules. A business that breeds the animals it sells still needs the county's separate pet breeder license under § 14-31, which requires a BCAS inspection of the breeding premises.