Photo: VCG

A community in Qingdao, East China's Shandong Province, has required all pet owners to send their pets away before December 31 and no more pets will be allowed in the community after that, but the move drew strong criticism from netizens on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo on Tuesday.

"Owners of pets are requested to find other places for care of their pets before December 31," said the notice, which was posted on November 18 by the management company of the community.

In the notice, punishments for people who do not obey were also put forward. "Former residents of Beicun who do not obey the regulations will have their payment of year-end dividends and property subsidies suspended. For renters or buyers who do not obey, we will report the case to the relevant department and take away the pets," Qingdao Beidu Property Management Co said in the notice.

The regulation, after being posted on the Internet, stirred heated discussion among netizens. The topic was viewed more than 120 million times on Sina Weibo.

"This is obviously a ridiculous one-size-fits-all policy. If the owners of the pets cannot find places to sent them away before the deadline, they would be stray animals. We should manage owners [rather than sending pets away]," said a Weibo user.

However, many netizens said that a lot of pet owners do not clean up the pets' waste or take a dog leash when walking their dogs. 

"Their living conditions are simply not good enough to support a decent life for pets and thus it results in an uncomfortable situation for both people and pets," one Weibo user said.

A member of staff at the management company told the Global Times the regulation was "decided by the neighborhood committee of Beicun Community, who manage our company. We have not received a notice from them to cancel the regulation."

"I cannot accept the regulation," a pet owner surnamed Zhang in Beijing told the Global Times. "I think pet owners need to behave when they walk their pets outdoors, but I will never send my pet away as it is like a family member for me."

The total number of pet cats and dogs in China's cities and towns exceeded 99.15 million in 2019, according to a 2019 White Paper on China's Pet Industry.

China's pet industry was worth 122 billion yuan in 2016, with a compound growth rate of 43.45 percent in the past six years, and it is expected that the market size will exceed 240 billion yuan in 2020, according to a Research Report on the Development of China's Pet Medical Industry.