Avery Street is an otherwise quiet residential strip in northwest Rochester. Children play basketball in the road. Family cookouts leave the scent of barbecue lingering in the air. And neighbors are on a first-name basis.
But for months now, a “filthy, roaming” band of roosters, hens and chicks have plagued the neighborhood, residents say. The fowl wander from yard to yard, leaving a trail of feces and eggs in their wake. The birds allegedly chase the local children and sometimes become the unfortunate victims of murderous raccoons.
“Nobody seemed to ever know what to do or how to enforce filthy, roaming chickens,” said neighbor Cora Murphy.
All those chickens stem from the home of Brianna Bonanni. She first got chickens about a year and a half ago, neighbors said. But the situation allegedly has deteriorated since then, drawing increasing attention from the city. Bonanni has been issued five citations since October, and a cease-and-desist order directing her to get rid of the chickens.
Now, the city has sued, seeking a court order to seize the chickens.
For the city to sue claiming a chicken nuisance is rare. But chicken farming in the city is not. The Rochester Police Department is the agency that issues poultry licenses. Records show it receives several dozen applications, including renewals, each year.
In that time, the department has issued about 100 citations related to chickens.
When approached outside her home, Bonanni ignored a reporter’s questions, got in a car, and drove away.
Chandell Graham is Bonanni’s neighbor. She said the noise, smell and debris from the roaming fowl has been relentless.
“I have pictures of her chickens that were sleeping on my grill outside in my backyard. Then the next day, I had droppings on my grill. There were eggs left, just eggs all in the driveway,” Graham said.
A picture of a chicken on a grill is used as evidence in the city’s lawsuit against Bonanni. The amount of chicken feces and food waste has attracted droves of flies and critters, according to neighbors and the city, including raccoons, possums and skunks.
“She's feeding everything,” Graham said. “So, quite naturally, they come there to feed, and then they sneak in your house, like the mice, because they need some place to rest after they've eaten up everything she's put out.”
The grousing about the birds from neighbors began last April. Police were called to the neighborhood multiple times for roving chickens. Animal control has seized several stray hens and a rooster from the property. While chickens are allowed in the city, roosters are not.
Viewed from the porch of a neighbor’s house, Bonanni’s backyard flock numbers about a dozen chickens, and many chicks.
Murphy lives next door. She describes the situation as a nightmare.
“I've seen kids walking down the street get scared and run,” Murphy said. “They chased my daughter a couple of times. They're a nuisance, and the impact to the neighborhood is so significant.”
Murphy and Graham said they have had to put up new fencing to keep out the fowl.
Patrick Beath is the top lawyer for the city. He said he’s never seen a case like this.
“I've been with the law department for 10 years, and I can't think of an occasion that we've brought an action to deal with this particular type of nuisance,” Beath said.
The city tried to meet with Bonanni to discuss the issues at the property. The lawsuit notes the last time that happened was in June. She didn’t show up to the meeting, according to the city.
The lawsuit came after the city exhausted all of its other options, Beath said.
“Ticketing often is effective because there's the monetary penalty, people want to avoid the financial hit,” he said. “That was not effective here. We sent the final cease-and-desist from the law department, saying, ‘If you don't get licensed and come into compliance with the code, then we're going to take legal action.’ That didn't work. So, our final tool is to get an order that lets us just seize the chickens to end the nuisance.”
A poultry license costs $75 and has to be renewed annually. But some local chicken farmers said the license does little to ensure responsible chicken ownership.
Across the city on Durnan Street, Emily Holland raises a small brood of chickens, including two kikirikis, a type of miniature chicken native to Puerto Rico, and the more robust cinnamon queens. The small collection is held in a clean, well-maintained coop in her backyard.
She doesn’t have a permit, nor do her neighbors who also keep chickens.
“It's a cash grab,” Holland said of the licensing requirement. “If the city comes after me and is, like, ‘I want my $75 for the permit.’ Alright, fine. Here's $75. But other than that, our property taxes are high enough. I feel like it's justified.”
While Bonanni does not hold a license for chickens, she did not have hers revoked. Rather, she failed to renew it in June 2024, city records show.
Murphy and Graham said they have given up on trying to speak with Bonanni.
“I think she's a hobbyist that just went too far,” Murphy said. “And then at this point, I think there's a little bit of spite because of the contention with the neighborhood.”
The city, in filing the case, included an extensive number of exhibits, including photographs of chickens in various places, tickets issued to Bonanni, and police incident reports. There is a total of 29 exhibits in the case.
Beath, the city lawyer, said the extensive documentation is an important piece of the puzzle.
“When the judge gets assigned a case and does a quick read and says, ‘This is a case about chickens?’ We want to make sure that it's clear that this is still a serious case,” Beath said, “even though it's about chickens.”
