Most of a nearly five-hour meeting Thursday night was devoted to the issue of whether beekeeping should be allowed inside McMinnville city limits.

However, the discussion also veered into the number of chickens that should be allowed on a residential lot and whether cats should be licensed and regulated like dogs.

The conclusions:

n Yes on the bees.

However, figuring out how to regulate urban beekeeping will require another public hearing in December.

The lateness of the hour may have been responsible for the jokes about requiring bees to wear tiny tags identifying their owners, and the jokes about punishing offending beekeepers by giving them feral cats. After listening to hours of testimony in their third public hearing on the subject, commissioners were clearly tired, but still committed to finding a solution.

n Two on the chickens.

Despite pleas from some chicken-lovers to allow more than two per lot, the limit remains unchanged. Residents wishing to keep additional chickens must provide an additional 1,000 square feet of lot space per bird.

However, commissioners reduced the setback requirements for chicken and rabbit pens from 25 feet to 15 feet, to accommodate people living on narrow lots.

n No on the cats.

No one could think of a good way to enforce regulations. And the idea of code enforcement officers spending their days chasing cats over fences and down alleys in an attempt to figure out who, if anyone, owned them sounded unproductive to commissioners.

City Planner Jennifer Lynaugh also pointed out that, since no one actually owns feral cats, no one can be held responsible for failing to follow regulations controlling them.

Sustainability and economic worries were repeatedly mentioned in both the testimony taken Thursday evening and written comments submitted to the Planning Department.

Sue Sanders echoed sentiments also mentioned by several other residents.

"I would urge the city council to promote self-reliance inside the city limits as much as possible," she told the commission, testifying against the banning of beekeeping. "In these times of economic stress, we should be encouraging self-reliance, not regulating it."

Kathleen Ulvang expressed similar concerns in an e-mail, objecting to changes proposed for the keeping of chickens and other livestock.

"You continually brag about priding yourselves on what a close, friendly, wonderful small community we have, but now you want to change things to model McMinnville after other larger, unfriendly, not so wonderful cities," she wrote. "Most importantly in today's struggling economy, you are trying to force people to increase their budget spending by taking away home-grown food they use on a daily basis, sometimes for every meal of the day."

In a separate e-mail, Ulvang wrote, "What good will two clucking chickens do for a family ... if they wanted fresh eggs for their family - especially a large family.

"Has the city honestly received so many complaints that some of these impositions on our rights as property owners even need to be addressed? All some of us have are small freedoms that are being chipped away at by commissions and politicians; let us keep those freedoms."

Several proponents of beekeeping testified that there is a statistically greater chance of dying by falling out of bed or being hit by lightning than by being stung by a honey bee.

Proponents of beekeeping packed the meeting room. Only one witness spoke in opposition, city secretary Pam Anderson.

However, 45 people signed a petition asking the commission to ban beekeeping, and five people, including one of the petition signers, wrote letters supporting a ban.

Several opponents said they or their spouses are allergic to bee stings.

"I strenuously object to bee keeping within the city," wrote Gerald Collins of McMinnville. "I am retired, on a fixed income and rely on the Veterans Administration hospital in Portland for my medical help. I am allergic to bee stings and have a heart condition which would preclude me from using an EpiPen if I were stung.

"With the VA so far away, it concerns me greatly. My hobby during the summer months is gardening and building flower arrangements to make my home more attractive, so this makes me feel at great risk."

Ronald Agee wrote that he worries about his wife, as she is allergic to bee stings.

"I was the victim of an unkempt beehive that had become full and the bees relocated, which happened to be in the wall of my house," he wrote. "When doing a repair on the house, the hammering irritated the bees and caused them to swarm me and sting my head several times.

"Fortunately, I did not have an allergic reaction, but I suffered a great deal of discomfort. ... I have fruit trees, garden and flowers and there has never been a shortage of pollinating insects needed to produce a satisfactory crop. My vote would be a definite no."

Unless they feel directly threatened, honeybees are not aggressive, particularly since they die when they strike, proponents and beekeepers repeatedly told the commissioners.

Two beekeepers, Marjorie Ehry of Dundee and Harry Vanderpool of Salem, told the commission they are allergic to bee stings as well. However, they said they don't fear being stung.

After developing a severe allergy, she stopped working bees with her husband, she said, but still enjoys being around them. She told the commission that honeybees are vital to food production, and urged members not to ban their keeping.

Despite her allergy, she said, "I'm not afraid of bees; I don't worry about them, because I've never had a bee just come up and sting me. When I've been stung, it's always been because of something I have done, or an accident.

"We're responsible for ourselves when we have allergies. We need to be careful about being around things we're allergic to. People are allergic to many things; seafood, peanuts, perfumes."

She said, "My brother is allergic to perfume, and one day he walked by a laundry soap aisle in the grocery store, and passed out... I don't believe everyone else should be punished for it."

Sanders told commissioners she is also allergic to perfumes.

"I'm one of those people who can't walk down the soap aisle," she said. "I don't see any ban on soap boxes."

Vanderpool, who works with his bees bare-handed and bare-armed, said he obtained a series of desensitization shots to rid himself of an allergy problem.

"If you're that severely allergic to bees, you have a health issue," he said. "You need to deal with it, not your neighbors.

"I don't think limiting the freedoms and activities of your neighbors is the way to deal with your personal health problems."

Several beekeepers told the commission they are available to remove swarms free of charge. One, Gordon Kroemer of Newberg, who is the director of environment, health and safety at Linfield College, told the commission his number is on file with the YCOM dispatch center to remove problem swarms.

Anderson, who is also allergic to bee stings, disputed some of the statistics keepers cited. She told the commission she doesn't believe bees are non-aggressive, citing news stories about animals being killed by bees in other parts of the country.

Vanderpool told the commission such occurrences are almost certainly caused by Africanized bees, which do not live in Oregon or neighboring states.

Anderson also argued that beekeepers are a "special interest group" wanting to infringe on other people's rights. "I can't think of another hobby that relies on access to your neighbor's property for you to pursue your activity," she told the commission.

Anderson worries about the safety of children who may disturb hives accidentally, noting there have been instances in local parks where parents and children panicked when bee swarms flew through. People could have been injured in panicked stampedes, she said.

"Bees don't belong in the urban setting," she told the commission. "It's a farm use. It belongs in a rural setting."