(a) The Commissioner of Energy and Environmental Protection shall maintain a record of all written complaints received by the department of violations of the regulations concerning hunting in proximity to buildings occupied by persons or domestic animals or used for storage of flammable or combustible materials or the regulations regarding shooting towards persons, buildings or animals. The commissioner shall hold a hearing at least once annually, in accordance with the provisions of chapter 54, at which changes in such regulations for particular localities shall be considered. The commissioner may amend such regulations for a particular locality where he finds that: (1) The physical setting of a particular locality presents an unreasonable risk that hunters may violate the regulations regarding hunting in proximity to buildings occupied by persons or domestic animals or used for storage of flammable or combustible materials or the regulations regarding shooting towards persons, buildings or animals; or (2) a record of documented complaints reveals that violations of such regulations occur with significant frequency.

(b) The chief law enforcement official for each municipality, or his designee, shall maintain a record of all complaints received by such official in each calendar year regarding any potential hazard to public safety related to any hunting activity and shall submit such record to the Commissioner of Energy and Environmental Protection annually. Such record shall be maintained separately from all other records of complaints received by such official. After an investigation of any such complaint, if the chief law enforcement official determines that a particular hunting activity in a particular location poses a hazard to public safety, he shall submit a written report of such determination to the Commissioner of Energy and Environmental Protection.

(c) On or before February 1, 1995, and annually thereafter, the Commissioner of Energy and Environmental Protection shall submit a report to the joint standing committee of the General Assembly having cognizance of matters relating to the environment which sets forth for the preceding year ending December thirty-first the number of complaints received and investigations conducted along with the action taken.

(P.A. 91-378, S. 8; P.A. 93-408, S. 1; P.A. 11-80, S. 1.)

History: P.A. 93-408 added new Subsecs. (b) and (c) re records of law enforcement officials and a report to the general assembly, respectively; pursuant to P.A. 11-80, “Commissioner of Environmental Protection” was changed editorially by the Revisors to “Commissioner of Energy and Environmental Protection”, effective July 1, 2011.

See Sec. 53a-217e re negligent hunting offenses.

By implementing procedure for dealing with local safety concerns, the state has given department the ultimate decision-making authority; municipal ordinances are thus preempted. 46 CS 588.