By Niki Cervantes
Staff Writer

January 28, 2014 -- The owners of the popular pony rides removed from the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market on Main Street won a legal victory last week when a Superior Court Judge refused to dismiss their case against a leading opponent, their attorney said Wednesday.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa Hart-Cole ruled Thursday that the lawsuit by the pony owners Tawni Angel and her husband, Jason Nestor, can move forward against Marcy Winograd, a local activist and onetime congressional candidate who started an e-petition campaign against the pony rides that alleged the animals were abused.

Thursday’s Superior Court action stems from Winograd’s attempt to quash Angel’s lawsuit, alleging that litigation would stop activists from exercising their first amendment rights to campaign against the rides.

 Donald E. Chomiak, representing Tawnis Ponies and Petting Farm, Inc., said the judge ruled that false statements had been made by Winograd and that her comments against the owners were made with “actual malice.”
 The judge ruled that the pony litigation could proceed, he said.

“Discovery will now move forward,” Chomiak said.

Winograd was not immediately available for comment.

The lawsuit alleges that Winograd and the other defendants falsely claimed Tawni's Ponies, which has operated in Santa Monica since 2003, was committing animal abuse by failing to provide clean drinking water to the animals, forcing them to work with cracked hooves and leaving them out in the sun in a loud environment.

The lawsuit also alleges that the defendants continued to make the claim after being informed by the Santa Monica Police Department’s (SMPD) Animal Control Unit that there was no evidence found during three different inspections to support the charges.

After a public lengthy hearing that attracted 33 speakers, the council in September sided with opponents of the pony rides.  It voted 4 to 0 to issue a request for proposals to replace the attraction with other non-animal-related “children’s-oriented activities.”

This potential RFP would disqualify Tawni's Ponies and Petting Farm from continuing its pony rides and petting zoo operation at the market, and instead seek vendors who specialize in “painting, arts and crafts, gardening, cooking, food preparation and decoration.”

In addition, the motion left an option to move Tawni's Ponies and Petting Farm to another space in the city, one that has the necessary space for the attraction. Some councilmembers worried that the pony rides and petting zoo were a tight squeeze at the Farmers Market.

Whether last Thursday’s Superior Court decision will give the pony operators a leg up back to Main Street, though, is hard to say.

Councilman Tony Vasquez said a new request for proposal is still being completed, although he didn’t know when it would come back for a council vote. He said it was still possible for the pony rides to come back, as long as the ponies aren’t tethered.

Pony rides are a good experience for children in general, Vazquez said.
“It’s not what they (the pony ride operators) do, it’s how they do it,” Vasquez said. “Instead of tethering them (the ponies), they should be walking with them.”
That’s how it was when he was a boy, Vazquez said. “They took you down to the corner.

Mayor Kevin McKeown, meanwhile, said he never believed any criminal animal cruelty had occurred when he voted last fall not renew the pony contract for the coming spring.

 His vote “was not based on that particular allegation,” McKeown said in an email. “The outcome of the lawsuit between the vendor and a third party has no bearing on the Council decision.”