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Chickens come home to roost in LTO
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By Joshua Dancel, Reporter HALF-COCKED might be the best way to describe the recent
Land Transportation Office (LTO) decision to move its Pasay City branch
into a cockpit—and now the chickens have come home to roost.
The Department of Transportation and Communication
(dotc) is asking LTO National Capital Region chief Nestorio Gualberto to
explain why the LTO office in Pasay was moved into Roligon, a cockfighting
arena in Parañaque City. Gualberto had earlier ordered some district offices in
Metro Manila to moved from their original locations. He said he decided to
move the Pasay office into Roligon because “it was offered free.”
This cock-and-bull story was apparently not good enough
for a furious dotc Secretary Leandro Mendoza, who was incensed at the idea
of a government office under his watch being housed in a gambling den.
Thomson Lantion, dotc spokesman, noted that putting an
LTO office inside a cockpit violates many local and national laws that
disallow gambling sites within 100 meters of schools, churches and
government offices. Already, the Senate Committee on Games, Amusement, and
Sports has criticized the strange situation of a government office being
subsidized by a private gambling operation. “That’s why the Secretary has ordered him [Gualberto] to explain how and why the LTO office there [in Pasay] was moved into a cockpit,” Lantion said, adding that the LTO-NCR chief will also have to find a new site immediately. |
Peter Jeziemy of Walnut Street in Seymour was busy Friday fine-tuning the lengthy presentation he plans to make to that town's Zoning Board of Appeals complaining about his neighbors' 30 chickens and two roosters.
Jeziemy wants the board, which will meet at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in Seymour Town Hall, to help him get the fowl the roosters, in particular to shut their beaks.
"I'm not going to listen to this noise anymore," he said of the roosters. "They crow at the first light of dawn and then they just 'cock-a-doodle-doo' every 20 seconds for an hour or more. It wasn't too bad during the winter, with the windows closed, but as soon as we open the windows with this nice weather, the noise problem will begin again."
However, after Jeziemy's initial complaint, the town's zoning enforcement officer ruled that the fowl owned by Howard and Kelly Brown of 88 Walnut St. are pets and do not violate zoning rules regarding animals in residential zones.
Jeziemy also tried getting the roosters muzzled by citing a noise ordinance. But police officers twice visited the street with decibel meters and found the sound caused by the roosters was far below the legal limit.
Jeziemy now has a new angle: Citing an ordinance that prohibits keeping of birds that produce consumable or marketable products. He claims the Browns are violating that regulation, since the rooster feathers can be marketed and their meat consumed.
"I'd like to see them enforce the regulation that they can't keep the birds," he said.
He will also raise a health issue. "It's unsanitary keeping all those chickens there," he said. "What are they doing with the droppings? The waste can spread disease and I have newspaper articles to back that up."
The Browns said they were surprised to hear their neighbor plans to take the matter to the ZBA.
"I don't understand how he can appeal this," said Kelly Brown. "They did the noise meter, and the sound just doesn't register."
Brown said they have owned the roosters more than a year, and "they don't ever wake us up." The birds remain in their coops until 9 a.m.
"There's no way the sound can travel to their home and penetrate the walls," said Howard Brown. "I don't know what he's trying to prove."
While neighbors' complaints brought the Seymour issue before the ZBA, it was a fluke that led an Ansonia couple
Brian and Karen Climis of Day Street to challenge a zoning officer's decision about their three hens and one rooster.
Their challenge is on the agenda of the Ansonia Zoning Board of Appeals meeting at 7 p.m. Friday in City Hall.
The chickens were first spotted by the Michael Marganski, the city's blight officer, as he conducted an unrelated inspection in the Day Street area. He said he saw several chickens wandering in the street and knew they belonged to the couple because he saw chicken coops on their property.
The matter was referred to Peter Crabtree, the city's zoning enforcement officer, who informed the couple they are violating a zoning regulation that says they need three acres to raise fowl. Their lot is 100 feet by 100 feet.
But the Climises maintain that the three-acre minimum is needed only if the property is used as a farm.
Crabtree, however, has stood firm on his ruling. "There's no loopholes here," he said.
Source: http://www.connpost.com/Stories/0,1413,96%257E3750%257E1284804,00.html
| Animal rights activists |
| By: Eddie Glenn, Press Staff Writer |
| not happy with poultry industry |
| Although Americans are eating more chicken than ever, some folks
aren't too happy with the process used to get that chicken from the
poultry farm to the table. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is currently publicizing the most common form of chicken slaughter: a stun bath designed to knock the birds out before their throats are slit and they are dumped into scalding water. PETA says many birds are conscious until the hot water kills them. Chicken industry officials say the method is safe, humane and efficient, but consumers just don't want to hear about it. And local poultry producers say their animals are treated better than most people realize. "The message came out clear that the customer said, 'We trust you as the retailers to make sure that the food you're selling us has been produced under animal welfare guidelines,"' said Jill Hollingsworth, the Farm Marketing Institute's vice president of animal safety programs, who's working with the industry to draft ethics guidelines. Animal rights activists say people might stop eating chicken if they knew about the slaughter process. "Chickens are probably the most abused animals on the face of the planet," said Bruce Friedrich, spokesman for PETA. With worldwide vegetarianism an unlikely ideal, PETA has set its sights on reform. It has launched a national boycott of Kentucky Fried Chicken, saying the fast-food chain should make sure its suppliers provide better living conditions for birds. They also want the stun bath method of slaughter done away with, advocating lethal doses of gas instead. Industry officials say that would be too costly. Speaking at an exposition workshop, Janice Swanson, a Kansas State University professor specializing in animal welfare, made a distinction between science and sentimentality. Swanson cited scientific research on the amount of cage space needed for a comfortable, productive chicken - about 72 square inches - but acknowledged that research may not convince activists. "They already made the decision that cages are all bad, so any increase to the space in a cage is not going to please special advocacy groups," she said, adding that it will be up to individual producers to decide how they want to treat chickens. Friedrich calls the research "laughable," saying that number forces chickens to be "literally living one on top of the other for their entire miserable lives." "Chickens should be glad to be chickens," he said. "They're intelligent, interesting animals who have as much rights as a dog or cat to breathe fresh air, form relationships and do the things that animals want to do." Bob Patterson, Hulbert poultry producer for Tyson Foods, said that operations like his treat chickens better than many people may realize. "The difference between the confined houses and free-range chickens is the chickens in the confined houses don't have to deal with the elements," said Patterson. "I guess they [animal rights activists] argue that the animals aren't treated well, but a free-range chicken has to deal with the heat and the cold." Patterson said Tyson has strict standards for how his chickens - 38,000 of them - are to be treated. "The food doesn't have chemicals anymore; if a human can't drink the water, Tyson won't allow a chicken to drink it; even the air has to meet certain standards," said Patterson. "They're treated better than any animal." Patterson, who's been in the poultry business for 23 years, said people should realize that producers have a vested interest in treating their chickens well. "No grower wants to do anything harmful to the animal; that would cut down the grower's income," said Patterson. That just makes sense - you take care of your animals, and they'll take care of you." Bobby Fairchild operates Clear Creek Game Farm, near the Cherokee/Adair County line. He says the efforts by animal rights activists against poultry producers is just the latest blow in the activists' fight against rural America - a fight that, last year, resulted in the ban of cockfighting in Oklahoma. "They [animal rights activists] are against any animal use, period, even down to eating an egg," said Fairchild. "If people don't get educated about what these activists really want, rural America as we know it is in serious jeopardy." Fairchild said Oklahoma cockfighters tried to garner support from the poultry industry last year, when the issue was being hotly debated in the state. "We asked Don Tyson [head of Tyson Foods], we asked the Pro Bassfishers Association, we asked the Cattlemen's Association, and some of the organizations we asked did give us support," said Fairchild. "But Don Tyson didn't give us much support, and that was the kind of support we needed." |
| ©Tahlequah Daily Press 2003 |