Youngstown, OH Animal Ordinances: Wildlife Feeding (2026)

Youngstown Codified Ordinances § 505.15 regulates pigeons in two ways. Subsection (a) allows residents to keep, house and fly homing or racing pigeons for exercise as long as the birds are banded with numbered leg bands showing registration with a recognized national pigeon association, and only if the birds are not kept, housed or flown so as to constitute a nuisance or create a public-health hazard. Subsection (b) separately bars feeding pigeons 'in public places or other dedicated streets and thoroughfares within the corporate limits' when doing so creates a nuisance or public-health hazard, and it names specific downtown locations where the rule applies: Federal Plaza West between Phelps Street and the center line of Market and Wick Avenue, and Federal Plaza East from the center line of Market Street west to Walnut Street.

That geographic specificity shows the rule grew out of downtown pigeon-feeding complaints rather than a general anti-wildlife-feeding policy citywide. Enforcement is aggravated for continuing conduct: once a violator has been notified that their feeding is causing a nuisance, each additional day the feeding continues is treated as a new, separate offense rather than a single ongoing violation, which lets citations stack for repeated feeding at the same location.