I ferreted it out of the drafts:
"NYC ban on keeping ferrets as pets stays, health board rules" by Jennifer Peltz, Associated Press March 11, 2015
NEW YORK — After gaining ground as pets in much of the United States, ferrets still cannot legally be at home in the country’s largest city.
New York City’s Board of Health narrowly decided Tuesday to maintain a longstanding ban on keeping the animals. Some board members said the slinky weasel relatives do not belong in dense, largely apartment-dwelling New York.
Crestfallen ferret fans said the city was acting on overinflated, unfair fears.
Ferrets are legal in the rest of New York State, but they have been a furry flashpoint in the city. Former mayor Rudolph Giuliani once told an ardent ferret aficionado, ‘‘This excessive concern with little weasels is a sickness.’’
The proposal to nix the ferret ban would have required the animals to be vaccinated for rabies, sterilized, and restrained when outdoors.
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