A proposed ban on the sale of live animals for food in San Francisco may have householders who operate kosher kitchens wondering whether such legislation applies to them. But the ban will not affect kosher butchers, say those who work in the kosher-meat industry.
That’s because when the meat arrives from the East or Midwest to local shops selling kosher products, the animals have already been slaughtered and kashered, explains Gary Freeman, owner of Oakland Kosher Foods.
The animals, he adds, “are killed in the most humane way.”
How animals are killed is at the heart of the ban, which the city’s Commission of Animal Control and Welfare voted last week to approve by a 7-3 margin, with one abstention.
The issue now moves to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, where some observers expect a continuation of the rancorous debate that brought it there.
Animal rights activists say live animals are often kept in cramped, squalid quarters and killed in inhumane ways.
Members of the Chinese-American community, among whom the sale of live animals for food is common, say the ban displays insensitivity toward their culture and prevents them from obtaining the freshest food possible.
The ban would apply to the sale of live mammals, birds, fowl, reptiles and amphibians in San Francisco. It would not apply to fish or shellfish.
Animal rights activists say they have discovered a range of abuses currently perpetrated against live animals in San Francisco shops. For instance, they cite butchers who rip off turtles’ shells, and chickens crowded in tiny cages without food or water.
The animal control commission has spent nearly two years studying the practice of live animal sales in San Francisco.
The laws regulating how kosher animals are slaughtered are strict.
“It’s done with an extremely sharp instrument, which virtually renders the animal unconscious when it’s put on the animal’s neck,” said Rabbi Jacob Traub of Orthodox Congregation Adath Israel in San Francisco. “For all intents and purposes, [the animal] is dead at that moment. The slaughter is very, very quick.”
If the instrument used to slaughter an animal is found to have so much as a nick, the animal is rendered nonkosher. That’s because a nick can cause the animal unnecessary pain, Traub explained.
“All those [precautions] are done against cruelty to animals,” he said.
Looking at the basic facts of the live animal controversy, Traub said he sympathizes with the Chinese-American community.
“I don’t like to see the government, whether federal, state or local, impinging on the rights of ethnic communities,” he said. “Before they go and pass any legislation, they should take into account the ethnicity of the community — their needs, their desires. I think it’s important.”