Chicken-killing has some critics crying foul plan

Judy Odierna

Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2003 | 9:38 a.m.

A new market in eastern Las Vegas hopes to be the first grocery store in the city to kill and cut up poultry on site.

The city Planning Commission will decide Thursday whether to give Liborio Market, 930 N. Lamb Blvd., permission to slaughter and process poultry.

The permit would come under what's called a "special use in a limited commercial zoning district," also known as C-1.

C-1 zoning applies to most retail shops and is usually located on the periphery of residential neighborhoods.

If the item passes, it would open the door for any business in the city with C-1 zoning to seek similar permission. Special use permits require public hearings, however, and the City Council has the final word, not the Planning Commission.

Liborio Market's lawyer, John T. Moran III, said "slaughterhouse" has a negative connotation and the image it evokes is not what owners Dr. Tony Alamo Jr., Tony Alamo Sr., and brothers John and Rick Alejo intend to do at the property, which opened its doors last week.

"We would never put a supermarket in an area that we would believe would have a business activity that would be harmful to the people who would be our clients," Moran said.

"We have had a neighborhood meeting and have taken people, at our expense, to Los Angeles to see our operations there. Promotional surveys have come back very favorable. Obviously we can't make everyone happy, but the majority of people (who) have come to us have said they are in support."

Caroline Romano, who lives adjacent to the store, is not one of those people.

"We just don't want a slaughterhouse outside our front door," Romano said. "We are concerned about smell and disease. This isn't an industrial area. This is a residential area. A grocery store is fine but not a chicken processing plant."

Terry Carpentier, who also lives adjacent to the store, is concerned that having a chicken-killing operation down the street could hurt property values.

"This is a city, not a ranch area," Carpentier said. "You are going to have a stench that doesn't quit. What about disposal problems? There's a wash right by the store. Is some debris from the chickens going to be in the wash, which gets in our drainage?"

Councilman Gary Reese, who oversees the district the market is in, said a member of his staff joined the group of residents who went to Los Angeles to view the other store. Reese said three of the people who went changed their mind after the visit.

"They said they were adamantly against it before but after seeing the procedure they were very much for it," he said. "No one will ever see the chickens, smell the chickens or hear the chickens."

Reese said he will base his decision on what happens at the Planning Commission meeting.

"I want to see if the points brought out either for or against are ones that I have not yet seen," Reese said. "I've always maintained that if it is not good enough for my back yard I won't put it in your back yard."

Moran said the store would be regulated by the Food and Drug Administration and the Clark County Health District.

The Health District requirements prohibit keeping live birds on the premises for an extended period of time and also prohibit waste from going directly into the sewer system.

The regulations also mandate that slaughtering and processing take place in a chamber separated from other areas of the market and that the store contract with a private firm experienced in handling remains.

The city also is adding that, should the item be approved, the applicant must store the live birds in an enclosed structure on the site where processing will take place and that the slaughtered birds be sold on site. No off-site sale of live or processed birds would be permitted.

"Employees that work in that particular area are restricted to only work in that area," Moran said. "Birds killed on site also contain less harmful diseases or bugs than ones that have been shipped in. Their immune system remains intact until they are actually killed, which allows the bird to fight off any disease prior to a person's consumption. It's like the concept of having live fish or lobster."

The project was initially rezoned to allow limited commercial use in September 2001 by the City Council. The rezoning meant that the part of the property proposed for industrial uses, which would be used to slaughter live birds on the site, needed to be deleted.

A request to amend the general plan to rezone the area back to industrial, submitted by Liborio Market last month to the Planning Commission, was postponed.

Planning Supervisor Dave Clapsaddle said by allowing the use in the C-1 district as a special use, as opposed to giving the property industrial zoning, would mean any future requests would be taken up by the Planning Commission and City Council on a case-by-case basis.

"Right now under the code they would need to apply for industrial zoning in order to be able to do this," Clapsaddle said. "There are many other uses (such as sexually oriented business or manufacturing) that are allowed in industrial. Once you grant them into the zoning you are permitted to do all these uses."