The city of Ojai (pronounced oh-high) in Southern California has passed a city ordinance declaring no one can keep an elephant in captivity in the city. The Forbes story indicates one was kept there for several years in the 1980s. None are currently resident in the valley town.
Ojai is the sort of place where this kind of snowflake action is always a possibility. It has attracted a variety of cultists over the years. In the 1920s, 30s and 40s it was a haven for Theosophists, in the 1960s and 70s it was popular with counterculture types. It has long attracted poets, artists, potters, and the like.
The Ojai Valley, which contains the city, is also the location of 3-4 posh boarding schools where the wealthy from Los Angeles and Hollywood sent their kids to be educated and learn horsemanship. Lana Turner's daughter Cheryl Crane who stabbed Lana's boyfriend Johnny Stompanato, went to school in Ojai. Rory Calhoun's inlaws lived there, etc.
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How do I know Ojai? I did part of my growing up in the valley, and attended the quite good public schools. My middle class family didn't hang with the movie crowd or the culture vultures.
Our side gig was a small commercial orange grove. We belonged to the Sunkist association, which marketed our juice oranges. I drove a Ford tractor before I ever drove a car.
I made the money for my first car trapping pocket gophers out of the orange groves. Left alone gophers unintentionally kill orange trees.
