$200 Profit From Selling Bunnies = $4,000,000 Fine

[pinkfox]

yes they are mill supporters, as are any animal that sells ANY live animals i find bunny, rat, hamster and bird mills only marginally less offensive than puppy and kitten mills...

and i HATE mills...
(im not anti breeder by any way shape or form, im just anti animal miller...)

however my biggest problems with petland come form the way their animals are treated in their care.

i did some undercover petstore work for a local small peper over the span of a year i worked in 4 different petstores, all of which made me sick to my stomach but petland was the worst...
cleaning procedures were zero to nill, employees wernt realy supervised and the method of cleaning the puppies crates was squish it through the bars with a paper towl when you get round to it...puppies literally would spend days with pop stuck to thier butts and urine stains. the kennels are only cleaned fully once a day (trays pulled and cleaned and rinsed so poop would pile up n the trays.
small animals were pretty much screwed as they didnt bring enough profit to warrent the additional time, so they were lucky if they got spot cleaned once a week, urine burns on the bunnies was very common.

sick animals were simply "put it in back" the vets they work with are paid for the bare minimum and are often not even told if theres a sick animal currently in a cage in back because by law vets have to report certain illnesses, i worked at the petland for 6 months and we had over 80 parvo deaths...none of which were reported to the authorites because it would mean the store had to be closed and quarrenteind and throughly cleaned and puppies would have to stay an additional 2 weeks because of the quarrentein...
and that would cut into profits..."people dont buy old puppies"

we got customers comming in all the time "the vet says my puppies sick" or "my puppy DIED" petlands official responce was always "not our fault" and then bandaid it by offering them about 10% of the purchase price back or off a new animal...
small animals like rabbits had no guarentees at all...
petland is one of the big stores whome all the complaints against led to the puppy lemon laws...

the place was always dirty, the animals were simply comodities...and if you got there one morning and an animal was dead..."oh it happens, ill call the dealer, they'll give us credit..."

not to mention the particular store i worked for refused their employees breaks ect.
it wasnt a healthy working environment and they did everything they could to scam whoever they could...we had a code, if an inspector came in the code was announced over the intercom and the meds we wernt supposed to have because we didnt have scripts for it and any puppies "off the records" (puppies the managemnt were self medicating to save money or potential parvo cases) were rushed out the back into a box truck that was always parked outback.

wed occaisonally get plain clothes inspectors too, but you always knew who they were just form the way the walked around the store first...plain clothed inspectors cant go into back rooms without first telling the managment who they are and that they are there for inspection...and they have to find evidence in the front of the store to warrent going in back...
the other problem was we knew when inspections days were comming because while they were supposed ot be random they always came on a wednesday every 6 months and always the 2nd weds of the month...
evein the "plain clothed" inspectors followed the same rules and regs.

wed get inspectors in when complaints were filled but again they have to come in and announce who they were and why they were there, giving the folks in the back plenty of time to rush the "hide-a-cases" out the back door.

petland has been taken to court many a time, how they are still open, i just dont know!

after my time there was done i submitted all personal accounts and pictures to the usda and nothing was done about it, the stores still open, and ive been in twice since then and its still in terrible shape, the place shoudl be condemmed...

and unfortunatly the other 3 stores i did time in (it ight as well have been prison to me) wernt much better, self medication, sick dogs not seeing the vets ect...animals just keeling over and nothing being done to prevent the spread of disese...

*shudder*

 

[FarmerChick]

some tax on equipment is just known as cost of doing business.

if Exxon buys new chairs for all employees (regardless of where they buy theM) ..they are subject also to the tune of big big money LOL


I hear ya though.

just the cost of doing business in this world.

and it sure isn't just our country lol

I guess it comes down to just not being easy on a daily basis. a bigger corp has 'employees' to hand all thsi crap...the little guy has to handle it all...ugh I know :/

 

[FarmerChick]

Yikes Pinkfox that was just horrible to read. I don't know how you handled that nightmare cause it would give me nightmares. UGH

yea I jsut never seen a Petland store....and hopefully I won't.....with the way the world is going, I doubt they will expand or stay in biz much longer which is a good thing....sometimes the disappearance of a chain of stores is warraned, and yea, they need to go bye/bye big time.


inspectors are one thing


but call in the local animanl control (animal cops)
they have the authority to go straight into any area in the establishment....and shut ya down in a sec.

I watch those animal cops on tv and they sure can shut down any operation in a second, they have authority where a normal inspector can't tread.

wow tho sounds horrible

 

[lwheelr]

If the USDA can create a regulation, without the benefit of a vote by the public, or even any real oversight by legislators, and if they can levy fines based on those regulations, fines they make up themselves, and then seize property to cover those fines, without the benefit of a court order, then we are living with tyranny, plain and simple. The FDA, FCC, and other entities are being given similar power, simply by our elected officials giving them free reign without oversight.

They will persecute any business that does not license with them, even though they state that licensing is "voluntary".

A $500 per year sales limit is so prohibitive that you can't practically sell ANYTHING without running into it.

Basically, what it comes down to for me, is that if a government official shows up on my doorstep, asking to "take a look around", I will ask them if they have a warrant, and if not, I will ask them to leave. Period.

What bothers me, is that the trend is toward the government telling us that various agencies have a RIGHT to inspect anything they wish, regardless of whether they have a warrant, even though that is clearly unconstitutional, as a violation against our right to be protected from unlawful search and seizure.

Where is the limit?

How is anyone supposed to be able to start a business anymore? The regulatory costs are simply too prohibitive in more than 50% of all professions, and fast rising in the others.

Also, how is it right when small breeders and large breeders are held to a different standard? Large breeders are using factory assembly line production facilities with minimal space per animal. This family used larger cages for their rabbits than are standard in the industry, and they were fined because of "inadequate space", yet every large breeder out there is using the same size cage for larger rabbits than these people are raising. The USDA chooses to overlook one, and crush the other. Their track record for that kind of thing is longstanding - they simply turn a blind eye wherever the money flows into their legislative supporters.

Furthermore, the federal government is not supposed to be able to regulate intrastate trade. Their power is supposed to be limited to trade occurring across state lines - Individual state Departments of Agriculture are supposed to regulate agriculture trade inside each state.

This is a trend that will grow. For those of us looking to make a living off of the sale of rare breeding stock, this bodes ill.

The "humane treatment of animals" if carried to extremes (and it will be - power is a seductive lure, one that no agency has yet been able to resist), then they can regulate every aspect of your farm. And they won't stop at "commercial" operations, it will quickly be applied to home farms as well (which they are pushing strongly for now).

What happens when you decide to feed your animals on forage, and the government says your cows have to have corn or you are abusing them? If they dictate "humane treatment", they will quickly dictate what is an "appropriate diet". They do it now with children, and will do so with animals.

What happens when you feed your dog raw meat, and the government declares that it is unlawful to do so because there is "unacceptable risk of contamination" for the dog (not ridiculous, there are a gazillion pet care sites out there that warn about feeding your animals real food for fear that they might be exposed to a germ).

What about feeding your chickens leftovers from your table? What happens when the government dictates that this is not acceptable? Not so far fetched, they already dictate that such items cannot be fed to meat pigs.

And what about manure on your garden? What will you do when it becomes illegal to use manure on your garden? Again, not so far fetched, the government already dictates what kind of manure can be used on commercial crops, and is now trying to push for regulation of home gardens.

Consider the implications of what this means about an out of control government, and what kind of oppression they can burden you with if it is not stopped.

 

[tortoise]

the moment these folks sold to the petting zoo (a resale op) and a petstore is the moment they broke the law....

That is exactly correct. I had a USDA license for animal performance and found it ridiculously easy to comply. All I had to do was get some papers signed by my vet, paint a fence, and buy the ID tags.

 

[savingdogs]

There certainly is a right way and a wrong way to raise animals, and there should be some government oversight, in my opinion, to prevent abuse, but there should be a balance between the needs of the humans and the needs of the animals and some fairness and common sense sprinkled liberally overall.

I find things such as starved, abused animals disgusting and want there to be some sort of way the government can prosecute these people who operate such as Pinkfox describes (I've heard similar stories before). However, there should also be limits on what the government can and can't tell us to do such as wether the milk we drink is raw or the meat we feed our dogs is uncooked, etc.

Just my two cents. I'm probably getting too political now so I'll stop commenting and just lurk here.

 

[Wifezilla]

some tax on equipment is just known as cost of doing business.

if Exxon buys new chairs for all employees (regardless of where they buy theM) ..they are subject also to the tune of big big money

Yeah. It's called sales tax and you pay it when you buy it. Not a tax every year for just using the chair. It is robbery as far as I am concerned.

 

[k0xxx]

It, at least on the surface, seems to be just a family that didn't know that they were doing anything wrong. It doesn't matter to me whether they broke the regulations or not. If they did, then issue a fine, but at least make the fine fit the "crime". A $90k fine for this families "infraction" is ludicrous. Period. I've seen people charged with DUI manslaughter get less of a fine. To increase it to $4 million, in and of itself, seems criminal.

 

[pinkfox]

lweeler, i agree with all of that...

BUT the fact of the matter is they sold to a commercial account (a pet store) and in order to sell to petstores for anything more than $500 in stock you HAVE to be USDA licensed and inspected.

their laywer wont have a leg to stand on in the "rule doesnt apply to them" statment unless they can prove that the sold less than $500 in "inventory" to resale outlets...

the usda isnt currently regulating hooby breeders sales to PRIVATE owners...

the usda DOES regulate PETSTORES and petting zoos, and by selling to both with the known purpose of them re-selling...thats where can legally get involved...
these folks were illegially selling (known to them or not) to a reseller and thats the ONLY reason the usda got involved.
their inspection of the petting zoo turned up they bought most or all of their rabbits form an unregulated breeder and it was obviously more than $500 in kits. usda by law has to inspect at that point becuase of the type of facility they were selling to...

so while they had no idea...USDA are only doing their job...

the fines and such are RIDICULOUS...and the IRS are gonna come knocking fairly soon to claim their share of the money too, but the fact of the matter is, they didnt do their reserch...you want to live animals to resellers as a business (over $500 a year) then you have to have a business license...and in this case the lisence needs to be issued by the usda.

just like breeders who breed more than i belive its 4 litters per year of dogs need to be inspected and to sell puppies to a petstore you NEED to be usda lisenced...

what bothers me more about all of this however is 1: how the inspection was done, fingers are NOT measuring units for cage size, and they do need to fight that "infraction" there was no measuring tape so the inspectors determination that the cges were 1/4 inch too small was a guess, eductated or not, it was a GUESS....
and 2: that these poor folks are being taken for so much and so long after the intiial inspection...im sure if the inspector had told them what the problem was there and then they would have either filled for the correct paperwork or stopped selling to resellers...

and 3: the usda are making a big deal about how this is for the welfare of the animals and THAT part is bull...i know what the usda regs for animal environment and care are like and they are ridicuously horrible...ive been in puppymills that passed usda inspection multiple times that would make anyone with a heart cry, puke or both...ive been in petstores that have passed inspection with dead animals in the tanks...ect.

i "get" the usda are doing their job and doing it correctly by following up on an unlisenced breeder selling wholesale in large numbers...
i get the fine even...

but the way theyve gone about all this is what realy discusts me, these are obviously not the kind of people doing it even though they know better...

should these folks have contacted the usda and found out if they needed any specific lisencing/paperwork in order to sell to petstores, YES...they should...

but did the USDA go way overboard with this...absolutly!


edit to add: k0xx, 100% agree with you!

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

It, at least on the surface, seems to be just a family that didn't know that they were doing anything wrong. It doesn't matter to me whether they broke the regulations or not. If they did, then issue a fine, but at least make the fine fit the "crime". A $90k fine for this families "infraction" is ludicrous. Period. I've seen people charged with DUI manslaughter get less of a fine. To increase it to $4 million, in and of itself, seems criminal.

word.

i was gonna say that not even drug lords get those kinds of fines.

people ask me all the time why i dont farm for profit. this is an example why - one "infraction" and you are screwed.

whatever happened to common sense and fairness is just right. especially when there are so many unemployed people. and at the same time - who in their right mind would start a small business right now?

were they a business... sure. we they selling toxic chemicals? guns? drugs? nope. bunnies.

for heavens sakes. give them a warning, make them pay whatever taxes and fees to get licensed and then give it a rest.