Albany Is Now Considering Bodega Cat Legislation

Your signatures helped introduce Int. 1471, the first legislation in NYC history aimed at protecting working shop cats. That bill is still moving through City Council with Councilmember Frank Morano as the new prime sponsor.

Now there's a second bill. At the state level.

Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal introduced A08341 last May. On January 7, it was re-referred to the Assembly Agriculture Committee for the new legislative session. This is the first time Albany has proposed anything like this.

The two bills do different things:

Int. 1471 (NYC) would stop city agencies from penalizing stores for having a working cat and create voluntary vaccination and spay/neuter programs.

A08341 (Albany) would direct the NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets to write official statewide care standards for cats in retail food stores.

City law can reduce local enforcement. But it explicitly does not override state rules. Full legalization requires Albany to act. Now Albany is considering whether to act.

This is what pressure looks like. A petition. A city bill. A state bill. 13,700 signatures. Media coverage that reached Tokyo. None of it happened overnight. None of it is guaranteed to succeed. But the path to legal recognition now runs through both City Hall and Albany.

That's new. And you helped make it happen.

Bodega Cats of New York arrives October 2026 from Quarto Publishing. If you want first access when pre-orders open: https://bodegacatsofnewyork.com/book also, our new Instagram handle is @newyorkbodegacats