Well, the good news is, Janna's been offered a really attractive summer
internship in St. Paul, MN.
 
The bad news is, it involves living in or near St. Paul this summer, and
their ferret licensing policies as described on the list of Ferret Free
Zones (associated with Ferret Central) are such:
 
>St Paul, MN
>-- requires a permit to keep exotic animals which is a one-time $25 fee
>per household. Re-inspections are every other year.
>
>Requirements include: current health certificates, an on site
>inspection, and written consent from 70% of the neighbors within 150 feet
>of your property that they don't mind you're having the exotic animal.
>
>This last is constitutionally unsound and has been dropped as a
>requirement in St. Cloud and Duluth and is being challenged in the courts
>in St. Paul. Also being challenged is whether or not the city has the
>right to regulate a domestic species as an exotic animal.
 
This information dates back at least to April of 1997; has anyone in St.
Paul or the vicinity heard if any of the challenges were successful?  How
about how strictly this permit requirement is enforced?
 
Now, there's no problem with the health certificates, and we like to think
we provide a proper environment for the fuzzies, but we would be living in
an apartment, which magnifies the 150 foot consent provision considerably
(finding a ferret-friendly landlord is another hurdle altogether).
 
Whatever city department handles this could make it as tough as they want
if the 150 foot consent provision still stands: securing consent from
essentially everyone in our building could be tough, but securing consent
from the _neighboring_ buildings, as apartment buildings tend to cluster
together, sounds damn near impossible.
 
Janna and Aron
Einstein, Daisy, and Bandit
[Posted in FML issue 2238]