Bodega Cats of New York (@bodegacatsofny.bsky.social)

How a Bodega Cat Petition Became Two Bills <h3>The path to legalizing New York’s shop cats didn’t start with a bill. It started with a petition, a “No,” and a lesson in how New York really works.</h3><h3>The Petition</h3>I had been documenting bodega cats since 2023. By early 2025, Bodega Cats of New York had tens of thousands of followers, press coverage from NPR to Japanese national television, and a growing archive of the cats that live and work in corner stores across all five boroughs.But documentation is not protection. The cats were still technically illegal. Owners were still getting fined. Nothing structural was changing.<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*Ll43V1qLPV0CXpt-JmOCCA.png" /></figure>In January 2025, I started a petition on Change.org. The ask was simple: create a certification program that would give bodega cats legal recognition and protect store owners from fines. I thought if enough people signed, the city would have to pay attention.It now has over 13,500 signatures. It keeps climbing without any active promotion. People find it because they care.<h3>The Meeting That Changed Everything</h3>Last March, I sat down with the Mayor’s Office of Animal Welfare. I went in with ideas: a certification program, a fund managed by a nonprofit, maybe an official Bodega Cat Day. I wanted to know what the city could do.They were generous with their time and honest about the constraints.The short version: the city’s hands are legally tied.Under current regulations, a cat in a food establishment is a health code violation. The city cannot officially protect, endorse, or celebrate something that state law says shouldn’t exist. The barrier wasn’t City Hall. It was the State Department of Agriculture and Markets, which licenses bodegas statewide.I left that meeting with a new understanding. Awareness wasn’t enough. A fund wasn’t enough. The only way to actually protect these cats was to change the law. City level and state level.<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*KJ_sloRZUPTHr286C11nAA.png" /></figure><h3>The Rat Math</h3>Bodega owners aren’t villains. They’re doing math.Any shopkeeper in New York knows the score. The fine for having a cat is roughly $200. The fine for evidence of rats is around $1,000. For decades, small business owners have treated that $200 ticket as a pest control tax. It’s an open secret: owners pay the fine because the cat works.The system is broken. The city can’t help because of state law. Owners are stuck paying fines to solve a rat problem the city can’t fix. Inspectors often look the other way because they know the cats are doing a job. But “everyone looks the other way” is not policy. It can change with one aggressive inspector, one bad news cycle, one political shift.Legal recognition is the only durable solution.<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*rY5wtYjd2hnA9JMSjOZ_rw.png" /></figure><h3>The Fund</h3>The rescue community had told me what they actually needed: money. Not a certification program. Not awareness. Cash for vet bills, spay/neuter, emergency care.The Mayor’s Office had explained why the city couldn’t run something like that. You can’t officially fund care for animals that aren’t supposed to exist under current law.So we did it ourselves.In April 2025, we launched the Bodega Cat Fundraiser as a coalition: Bodega Cats of New York, Bodega Cats of Instagram, the Shop Cats Show, and Bodega Cat Spirits. Combined reach of 1.7 million followers. Corporate sponsors signed on: Smalls, Arm & Hammer Cat Litter, Bodega Cat Whiskey, Padhome Pet Services. We built a landing page, ran a coordinated campaign across all four accounts, and asked people to give.We raised $7,442 and distributed 100% of it to four rescue organizations doing the actual work: Bronx Tails Cat Rescue, Catstoria Rescue, Sassee Cats, and Bronx Community Cats.It wasn’t a structural fix. It was a stopgap. But it proved the community would show up, and it got real money to the people caring for these cats while we waited for the law to catch up.<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*lfI-B7RX6KlZTeP9bUQx9Q.png" /></figure><h3>From Moonshot to Movement</h3>We pivoted. We stopped just asking for protection, which is legally impossible under current codes, and started advocating for standards.If we could get the state to recognize these cats as working animals rather than violations, we could override the health codes that tied the city’s hands.Council Member Keith Powers reached out to me on Instagram. I worked with him and his team to refine the idea, and he took it from there.Then, right as the bill was gaining traction, our 55,000-follower Instagram account went down. No warning. No recourse. The platform we’d built the entire movement on vanished overnight.The petition kept climbing anyway. The bills kept moving. It turned out the idea had already traveled far enough that it didn’t need the account anymore.Powers introduced Int. 1471, tackling the enforcement side. The bill stops the city from penalizing stores for having cats and creates voluntary vaccination and spay/neuter programs. It now has six sponsors and bipartisan support. It’s sitting with the Committee on Health, waiting for a hearing.At the state level, Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal introduced A08341 in May 2025. I found out about it from a friend. Rosenthal’s office didn’t reach out. I didn’t lobby Albany. The bill just appeared.That was the moment I realized the conversation had expanded beyond anything I could coordinate. The petition had done what petitions are supposed to do: it made the issue visible enough that people with actual legislative power decided to act.Rosenthal has a long record on animal welfare. She championed the ban on cat declawing and the law against selling dogs and cats from puppy mills. If anyone in Albany was going to introduce a bodega cat bill, it was going to be her.Her bill requires the State Department of Agriculture and Markets to create official health and safety guidelines for cats in retail food stores. Statewide. Every county. The proposed standards include regular vet check-ups, mandatory spaying or neutering, proper nutrition, and designated “cat zones” separate from food prep and storage.On January 7, 2026, the bill was re-referred to the Assembly Agriculture Committee for the new legislative session.<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*mlNOh2rous9WCDRsj69I9Q.png" /></figure><h3>Two Bills, One Goal</h3>The city bill is a shield. It stops punishment.The state bill is authorization. It changes the rule.Protection without standards leaves quality of care up to individual owners. Standards without protection still expose owners to fines. The two bills are complementary. If both pass, New York would have the most comprehensive legal framework for working shop cats in the country.<h3>What I Learned</h3>A petition is a starting point, not an endpoint. Signatures show demand. They don’t change law.Talk to the people who will tell you why your idea won’t work. The Mayor’s Office told me what the city couldn’t do. That conversation made the strategy sharper.The system is layered. City and state. Health codes and licensing. Enforcement and legislation. You have to understand where the blockers actually are before you can move them.Gray areas are not protection. Legal recognition is.You don’t have to control everything. You have to start something worth picking up. I didn’t know about the state bill until a friend told me. That’s not a failure. That’s proof the idea traveled.Don’t build on rented land. We lost our 55,000-follower Instagram account at a critical moment. The movement survived because it had already spread beyond one platform. But it was a lesson: if your entire operation depends on a platform you don’t control, you’re one algorithmic decision away from losing everything.<h3>What We Need Now</h3>The state bill is the key. It creates the care standards that make these cats legal workers rather than violations.But to pass a state law, we need a partner in the Senate. We have Assembly Member Rosenthal. We do not yet have a Senate sponsor.If you live in New York, now is the time to call your State Senator. Tell them there’s a bill in the Assembly that solves the bodega cat problem once and for all, and it needs a champion in the Senate.You can track both bills yourself:<ul><li>City: Int. <a href="https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=7732285&GUID=F2420981-8792-4A2A-88F3-26E1F754B23C">1471–2025</a></li><li>State: <a href="https://legiscan.com/NY/bill/A08341/2025">A08341</a></li></ul>Thirteen months ago, there was a petition. Now there are two bills. We proved a moonshot could move City Hall. Now let’s see if we can move Albany.<a href="https://bodegacatsofnewyork.com/book">Bodega Cats of New York, the book, comes out October 2026.</a><img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=8d45e6aea2f3" width="1" height="1" alt=""> https://medium.com/@bodegacatsofnewyork/how-a-bodega-cat-petition-became-two-bills-8d45e6aea2f3?source=rss-275c45351c9------2