NY CONSTRICTOR RULES??

Does anyone know what the rules are for having constricting snakes in NY are?
I origionally heard a while back that it was any snake that could grow over 6ft in length. But recently I was at my local pet store and they were saying it was any constrictor that reaches over 4ft. Does anyone know what it really is?
I was also wondering how this affects purchasing a snake. for instance, if i bought a 6ft python from the classifieds on this website and had it shipped would it actually get here or not?

Local laws may be more restrictive than State laws. The State "banned" several species, based on average adult size (and, therefore, perceived threat) a few years ago. There are some County, City, and Town regulations that prohibit owning constrictors over a certain size (and, I believe, some that regulate by species). You need to be responsible for knowing, and abiding by, your local laws.
If you were to purchase an animal online, and it happened to be bigger than local ordinance allowed, in all likelihood you would still get it - there is no requirement to list size on the shipping container. If a particular species is banned, on the other hand, you might not be quite so lucky. It isn't the job of the carrier to police such such things, and in most cases they wouldn't know if it was legal or not...but you never know who WILL see it, or report it.

John,

Find out the local laws. They can be pretty radical compared to the state law which is shown on the link below:

http://www.scalesandtails.com/pdf/Law.pdf

At the least some communities require that EMS and Law Enforcement are notified about certain animals so they are aware of them in case they have to respond to a situation at a residence.

I know that the 5 Burroughs of NYC have some strict rules even limiting a lot of Colubrids. So mileage may vary on what you can keep for pets. One nearby town has even regulated spider size by species. For example, rose hair tarantulas are legal but goliath bird eaters aren't. Crazy.

The NY state law restricts only Burms, Retics, African Rocks, Indian, and Scrub Pythons, along with Anacondas and venomous species. As mentioned in earlier posts, some cities are more restrictive. No state-wide size limit, only those species.

Bruce Lowder

Just look carefully at 'Scrubs' as some have their own species name and the law only restricts 2 of them (kinghorni and amethistina). Some some of the general group are ok, others aren't.

well i live in staten island and sinc a few years ago when these laws were passed you cannot even get a ball python in the pet stores ( this is the same store i bought my boa at) and they say they cant even get anything if i wanted to

The DEC up here had came to several pet stores trying to enforce some crazy things until the stores pointed out the law they referenced clearly stated that it was a NYC one. Same guy flipped out when he thought a green vine snake was a boomslang.

Originally Posted by JohnG1122

well i live in staten island and sinc a few years ago when these laws were passed you cannot even get a ball python in the pet stores ( this is the same store i bought my boa at) and they say they cant even get anything if i wanted to

John, if you are referencing a specific law (or set of laws) it might help if you located them, and read them for yourself...or copied/pasted them in the legislative forum so we could look them over. It is quite conceivable to me that a local law could/would prohibit constrictors that reach an adult length of greater than 4 ft. Perhaps you misunderstood what the pet store person told you, maybe they are correct, or maybe they just don't want to deal with snakes (or, possibly, you). There is really no way for us to know.