Weston, FL Animal Ordinances: Pet Store Rules (2026)

Section 53.03, adopted by Ordinance 2010-12 and amended by Ordinance 2013-09, sits in Chapter 53, Animal Care and Regulation, right after the city's ban on wild animals and its adoption of the Broward County Animal Care and Adoption Ordinance in § 53.01. The rule targets outdoor and sidewalk-style commercial displays, the kind used to draw foot traffic at a strip mall or a Weston Town Center storefront, rather than regulating what a store may sell once a customer is inside. Because the exception covers the interior of a retail establishment whose primary purpose is the sale of animals, a pet store that sells puppies, kittens, or other animals indoors is not reached by this section at all; Weston has adopted no separate puppy-mill or retail-sourcing ordinance requiring stores to sell only shelter or rescue animals.

Any consumer-protection or breeder-sourcing standards that do apply to Florida pet dealers come from state law and from Broward County's Animal Care and Adoption Ordinance, which § 53.01 folds into the City Code, not from an independent Weston retail-sale restriction. The practical effect on the ground is that a Weston pet store may keep animals for sale inside its premises without running afoul of Chapter 53, while a business that sets up an outdoor cage, tank, or pen on a sidewalk or in a parking lot to attract customers falls outside the interior exception and is subject to enforcement.