Slaughter
Continued from Page 28
At the June 24, 2020, Boycott Meat
virtual press conference, physician and
author Michael Greger warned that
conditions common in slaughterhouses,
such as overcrowding, lack of sunlight
and animals’ weakened immune systems
from stress, create the perfect environment
for the emergence and spread of
super strains of influenza. The Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention cautions
that a virus currently circulating
among poultry in China (H7N9 virus)
has pandemic potential if it gains the
ability to spread from human to human.
“It may take a pandemic that kills
millions before the world realizes the
true cost of cheap chicken,” Greger
said, bringing his comments at the
press conference to a close.
But Robert Grillo, who started the
Slaughter Free Chicago campaign,
doesn’t want to wait for that grim
prediction to play out. Even though
large slaughterhouses receive most of
the attention for causing salmonella
and Covid-19 outbreaks, Grillo believes
the remaining slaughterhouses
in Chicago are of particular concern
because of their proximity to densely
populated areas.
IN CHICAGO, PEOPLE LIVE IN
apartments on top of slaughterhouses,
side by side and across an
alleyway. “Sixteen feet away, you could
have several hundred people living in
an apartment building,” says Grillo.
Juliette Payero has lived next to
Chicago Live Poultry for 22 years.
She lived three buildings down from
the slaughterhouse for 17 years before
moving into the apartment
directly behind it five years ago.
“In the other building, I couldn’t see
anything. I knew they were there, but it
didn’t affect me as much. Out of sight,
out of mind,” Payero says. “Now that I
see it, and the deliveries are right in my
face, it’s hard to look away.”
Payero says the stench is overwhelming
as soon as a delivery truck opens.
The trucks can’t make the tight turn
into the alley right behind the slaughterhouse,
so delivery workers have to push
the cages of animals through the alley,
which is riddled with potholes that trap
the wheels more often than not.
According to Payero, feathers litter
the alley, and potholes full of standing
water stink. While sharing an alley with
a slaughterhouse does add an unpleasant
smell to her life, what really bothers
Payero is the treatment of the animals.
She was walking her dog during a delivery
one day and saw one of the workers
throw a cage. She heard the birds crying
and thought it seemed like workers
were mistreating the animals. “There’s
no way you cannot get involved when
you see stuff like that,” says Payero.
One day, she got a letter in the mail
from Grillo informing her about efforts
to close Chicago Live Poultry
and asking if anyone had complaints
about the business. Payero, who had
never before heard of Slaughter Free
Chicago, contacted Grillo and told
him she lives behind the slaughterhouse
and can see the deliveries. “It
takes a toll on me after (the delivery)
because I internalize it, and I feel
someone’s pain, even if it’s an animal,”
she says. Now, she takes photos of the
deliveries from her living room window
and reports everything she observes
to Grillo.
HAVING BEEN AN ANIMAL
rights activist and organizer for
nearly a decade, Grillo wanted to
start a more locally focused grassroots
effort in 2018. That’s when his nonprofit,
Free From Harm, which he founded
in 2009 to help build a nonviolent
movement to end animal exploitation,
launched the Slaughter Free Chicago
campaign. Then, the city had 15 live
markets and 16 slaughterhouses overall:
14 small-animal and two large-animal.
“I realized that closing the existing places
was a doable thing. It was a tangible
thing. We could do it,” Grillo says.
The method? It’s multifold and evolving.
First, activists learn public health
ordinances and pressure public officials
to enforce existing laws. Activists then
document violations of rules, such as
slaughterhouses selling live animals,
placing animals in a garage or alley
while cleaning the facility or after delivery,
selling wholesale, or operating a kill
floor within 200 feet of a residence, park
or business. Next, with documentation
in hand, activists file complaints with
the city’s department of public health.
Russian-born immigrant Paulina
Hubli is one of the activists who collect
evidence of health and safety violations.
“I’m from the Soviet Union and
was kind of brought up to speak truth
to power no matter what the consequences
are because the consequences
of not speaking truth to power are always
worse,” she says.
Spy camera in hand and 13-yearold
daughter beside her, Hubli visited
some of the live markets. “That was a
new experience for me,” she says. “We
did see the horror of a back room, covered
with blood and pieces of flesh
everywhere, and there are dead birds
in the cages. It’s extremely, extremely
disturbing.”
Grillo believes slaughterhouses are
incapable of complying with public
health and safety laws. But he also believes
state agencies are unable and unwilling
to enforce the laws properly.
The Chicago Department of Public
Health has the power to issue fines and
suspend or revoke business licenses if inspectors
find serious enough violations.
Continued on Page 32 »
WE DID SEE THE
HORROR OF A
BACK ROOM,
COVERED WITH
BLOOD AND
PIECES OF FLESH
EVERYWHERE, AND
THERE ARE DEAD
BIRDS IN THE CAGES.
IT’S EXTREMELY,
EXTREMELY
DISTURBING.”
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