Long before Thi, Thoa and Tram Bui launched their kitten empire and became poster children for Palo Alto’s latest zoning debate, they were teenagers who saved their allowance money to buy food for the legions of feral cats roaming around their south San Jose neighborhood.
As high-school students, they spearheaded their neighborhood’s “trap, neuter and release program,” bringing wandering kittens to the local animal shelter and then distributing newly fixed kittens to their family and friends, Thoa Bui said in an interview.
Their ambitions and sense of purpose continued as they moved through college. Even though they had other jobs to support themselves, kitten care remained a passion project. The sisters gained traction on social media in 2018 when they fostered 80 kittens out of their home, Bui said.
“We would pull the youngest kittens they’d have at the shelter and take care of them and become a foster home, but on a bigger scale,” she said.
The following year, the sisters applied for nonprofit status and tried to scale their operation up by expanding into new office space. Not a single office space would take them, Thoa Bui said.
The answer came from an unlikely source. One day in 2019, the sisters were walking in Eastridge Shopping Center in San Jose when Thi suggested setting up their operation at the mall.
“I was totally against it,” Thoa Bui recalled. “I thought, ‘I’m an adult. I can’t work at the mall.’ But she submitted it anyway.”
In June of that year, they received two bits of good news. On the same day, they had received approval for 501(c)3 status and opened their Eastridge operation. Mini Cat Town was born.
The operation has been growing at a rapid clip, as Mini Cat Town enlisted hundreds of volunteers and partnered with numerous animal shelters and rescue organizations. They also began to solicit interest from other shopping centers that wanted to replicate what Eastridge had. Initially, they weren’t ready for growth.
“We were still running it ourselves and trying to make it work on top of working our own jobs,” Thoa Bui recalled.
They also had to navigate unforeseen complications, most notably the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced them to immediately shut down their operation.
“We got the news that day and we had to figure out what to do with 30 kittens,” she said.
“Everyone just took them home and fostered them. And then we figured out how to do adoption with social distancing so that people don’t get sick.”
Their expansion began in earnest in 2022, when Simon Property Group approached them to set up shop at Stoneridge Shopping Center in Pleasanton. By that time, the sisters had developed a blueprint for running their adoption nonprofit and felt more comfortable delegating the work to other staff members. Buoyed by their success, they opened two more locations in 2023, at Santa Rosa Plaza in Santa Rosa and in Great Mall in Milpitas. By the time Stanford Shopping Center, which is also owned by Simon, approached them in 2024 to open an adoption floor, they were eager to jump at the opportunity.
“We were sold because the management of Stanford Shopping Center was really excited and wanted us there and loved cats,” Thoa Bui said. “It seemed like a good fit.”
The operation was initially intended as a six-month popup and things appeared to be going smoothly. The Stanford location immediately became the one with the highest adoption rates, Bui said. The community seemingly embraced the new business, with children and adults lining up for their chance to pet and play with kittens.
The sisters applied for – and received – a business license from the city. They requested an extension beyond the six-month period and were told this shouldn’t be a problem, even though they may have to relocate to another location within the mall. Bui said she and her siblings were willing to obtain whatever permits they needed to be reclassified as a retail pet store and remain in Palo Alto.
Things changed on Dec. 2, when the sisters received notice from the city that they would have to vacate their Stanford location by the end of the month. The city’s code enforcement officers had determined that the operation in fact violates local laws about boarding animals at retail locations.
“We panicked,” Bui said. “We thought, ‘What are we going to do with all these cats and what are we going to say to our team who didn’t see this coming?'”
The sisters had no intention of going to war with the city over zoning. They put together a petition on Change.org notifying the community about the reclassification from “retail pet store” to “kennel and boarding” operation but they refrained from publicizing it through any of their social media channels. In late December, however, the news became publicized when a supporter of Mini Cat Town publicized the petition on NextDoor and people started commenting, contacting the organization and pledging their support.
The sisters also began to lobby city officials. In the first two weeks of December, they reached out to city planners and council members and pledged to do whatever it takes to remain in Palo Alto. Among their early supporters was Council member Pat Burt, whom they met over coffee during his office hours.
Retail politics
In some ways, the timing was auspicious. Burt sits on the council’s Retail Committee and has been heavily involved in Palo Alto’s ongoing efforts to loosen restrictions on retail establishments as part of a broader strategy to lower vacancy rates in commercial areas. To further that effort, the council passed an ordinance in November that revised the local definition of “retail-like” uses. Instead of cataloguing the various types of businesses that are fit this definition (hotels, restaurants, etc.), the definition now applies to any businesses that the planning director deems to be “accessible to the general public, generate walk-in pedestrian clientele, and contribute to a high level of pedestrian activity.”
Burt said in an interview that his review of the city’s zoning rules surrounding pet stores and kennels convinced him that it’s time to revisit the city’s rules on these establishments. The existing code has clauses that may seem less than relevant to modern animal lovers, including an explicit prohibition on selling raccoons and a rule that bans sale or barter of baby chicks, ducklings or other fowl under four weeks of age in any quantity less than six. Pet shops and boarding kennels also require special permits from the city, according to the zoning code. And boarding kennels are restricted to agricultural areas, which effectively makes them a nonstarter in today’s modern setting.
“All that makes me feel like we need to look at his code,” Burt said.
Burt noted that Mini Cat Town business isn’t exactly a pet store or a boarding facility. It doesn’t charge for animal boarding; it doesn’t mess with racoons; and it definitely doesn’t barter ducklings. Given that it’s all about petting and adoptions, Burt suggested the boarding aspect can be considered an “incidental use” rather than the main facet of its operation. He shared his observations with Planning Director Jonathan Lait, who agreed to reevaluate staff’s approach to Mini Cat Town.
“We stayed the enforcement and we’re working with the tenant to evaluate the options,” Lait told this publication on Monday.
City Manager Ed Shikada also indicated that Mini Cat Town will get a reprieve at least until spring of 2025. He told this publication that the nonprofit was asked to leave Stanford Shopping Center because its use was established without prior city approval of a use and occupancy permit. Code enforcement officers determined that the existing use is in violation of code regulations pertaining to animal care facilities, he said.
“More specifically, the zoning code precludes the boarding of animals at the shopping center and Mini Cat Town provides overnight stay of cats,” Shikada said in an email.
Since then, however, planning staff have taken a step back. After initially extending Mini Cat Town’s stay until the end of December and then to the end of January, the city agreed not to take any actions against the business at least until spring. In the meantime, staff and possibly the Planning and Transportation Commission will review the city’s definition of “animal care facilities” and consider its applicability, particularly at a time when the city is trying to encourage more retail by loosening its regulations over allowed uses.
“A determination on the land use is anticipated for spring 2025 and no further code enforcement action will be taken with Mini Cat Town in the meantime,” Shikada said in an email.
Should they stay or should they go?
As city planners have continued to evaluate local retail laws, Mini Cat Town has amassed notable supporters within the community since the initial notification. More than 800 people have signed the petition as of Jan. 7. And last Saturday, council member Greer Stone was among the animal lovers who waited outside the Mini Cat Town’s glass entrance, waiting to get to the nonprofit’s adoption floor (“I did not play the mayor card,” he said).
Stone, who served as mayor up until Jan. 6, told this publication that under his reading of the zoning code, the nonprofit should be able to remain at Stanford.
But if city planners feel otherwise, he would rather change the law than see Mini Cat Town leave. If planning staff feel that the city needs a clearer definition to allow this type of use, he said he would be happy to work with his council colleagues to pursue these changes.
“I think it should definitely remain,” Stone told this publication. “I don’t think we need to have too liberal of an interpretation of the zoning code to allow Mini Cat Town to stay.”
Thoa Bui said she has been heartened by the community’s embrace of their operation. On a recent visit, a reporter observed one kitten was rolling around in a tube-like enclosure, another chasing a toy that dangled from a stick wielded by a youthful human admirer, and a third resting in a small cube-like container. Other kittens hunkered down for petting by visitors on one of the couches that line Mini Cat Town’s walls. Humans who did not have appointments or who arrived too early looked on from outside the entrance.
Stone said he believes businesses like Mini Cat Town should be protected and encouraged.
“I think it’s great that it’s in Stanford Shopping Center,” he said. “I wish we had something similar on California Avenue or downtown because that’s the type of retail that we need to be thinking, which is beyond traditional settings. Shoppers are looking for experiential destinations.”
He also said he believes the imbroglio over Mini Cat Town’s potential closure serves as a good lesson for city officials about how they communicate with the business community.
“I wish the city was a little clearer at the beginning of this that we’re just looking into what type of zoning designation this fits into and make the changes that need to be made, rather than this concern that the Mini Cat Town was going to be shut down,” Stone said.
The city’s recent actions – or more accurately, inactions – have provided temporary relief for Mini Cat Town, but the Bui sisters are far from ready to declare victory. In addition to their adoption floors, they are operating a spay and neuter van, which they dubbed Spay Shuttle. They are also cognizant of the fact that the city’s timeline for a decision on Mini Cat Town’s long-term future coincides with “kitten season,” a time of the year where cats enjoy mating.
“That’s when they have thousands of kittens flooding into shelters,” Bui said. “For us, it’s the busiest time of the year because we’re pulling hundreds of kittens from the shelter. I hope they don’t decide to say, ‘See you later!’ in the spring.”
Correction: While Pat Burt sat on the council’s Retail Committee in 2024, he did not chair the committee as the article initially stated.
