NYC bill would ban pet stores from hawking birds — leaving activists crowing and small-biz owners crying fowl

New York Post

7 days ago

City pet shops would be barred from hawking birds under a new local bill that's pitting animal activists against mom-and-pop peddlers.
The animal-rights camp says the proposed New York City Council plan — introduced less than a year after the Big Apple banned shops from selling cats, dogs and rabbits — is needed to thwart cramped, inhumane breeding mills.
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'Birds are not decorations, toys, or commodities—they are living, feeling animals who should not spend their lives caged in tiny New York City apartments,' said Allie Feldman Taylor, founder and president of Voters For Animal Rights, which has been pushing for the ban alongside Councilwoman Diana Ayala.
But bird sellers are crying foul, claiming the bill could be their swan song.
6 Big Apple pet stores would be banned from selling birds under a new City Council bill.
Michael Nagle
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6 If the plan passes, it would be a swan song for many of Gotham's mom-and-pop shops, owners say.
Michael Nagle
'They're going to force people out of business,' said Sayari Hichem, a former pizza-shop worker who has owned Royal Birds & Supplies in Richmond Hill, Queens, for just under two years. 'It's going to affect every single person [involved].'
The bill would bar pet stores from slinging parrots, parakeets, cockatiels, macaws and other popular pet species but not ban the peddling of poultry such as chickens.
If passed, it would mark the first retail ban of birds in the state. A similar bill at the state level is in committee.
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'New York has already banned the retail sale of dogs and cats due to the cruelties of the puppy mill industry,' said Humane Long Island Executive Director John Di Leonardo to The Post.
'However, these cruelties pale in comparison to an industry that cages birds by the hundreds or even thousands in cramped and barren cages,' he said — adding the birds screech, suffer and mutilate themselves in confinement.
6 Birds in cages are peddled for sale at Royal Birds & Supplies in Richmond Hill, Queens.
Michael Nagle
But the legislation is already ruffling feathers in the Big Apple's pet-store community, with a 'high percentage' of bird shops and supply stores expected to close as a result, according to Felix Nieves, who owns Pet NV Discounts in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
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Nieves, who has run his Central Avenue supply shop for 37 years, fears that his store — which doesn't sell live animals — would be another casualty of the ban.
6 'They're going to force people out of business,' said Royal Birds owner Sayari Hichem.
Michael Nagle
'When they banned rabbits, there was a decline in sales for rabbit food and cages,' he said.
6 Bird-peddling shops say they're the best way to regulate the market.
Michael Nagle
Hichem, 49, who sells about three birds per week, warned that the bill will only move bird sales to the unregulated 'black market,' where many breeders have allegedly already started turning a profit without a middleman.
Megan Walton of the New York-based avian sanctuary Pigeons for Miles said the proposed legislation could result in a 'backyard breeding nightmare kind of situation very quickly if there aren't provisions in place to prevent that.'
She said the ban will still take 'ages' to go into effect as Big Apple birds continue to suffer — including a baby parrot at a shop in Corona, Queens, that reportedly died inside its cage while the others pecked at the glass last month, according to a video shared with The Post.
But Hichem denounced what he called the bill's one-size-fits-all measure and argued his store — which also takes in rescues and surrenders — is much more than just a shop: It's an avian sanctuary for birds who have nowhere else to go.
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'They think we're abusing the birds … It's not the right way, to ban a place that the birds need,' he said, adding that he hand-feeds and raises '90%' of his birds before they're sold to the public.
6 Hichem says his store — which also takes in rescues and surrenders — is much more than just a shop: It's an avian sanctuary for birds who have nowhere else to go.
Michael Nagle
But animal activists say bird surrenders from well-meaning families are already packing sanctuaries, and that the bill would open up avenues for local stores to generate a new kind of revenue by leasing much-needed shelter space for dogs and cats that can be adopted.
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'We experienced the same concerns when we fought to restrict wild animals in circuses years ago – now Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus is back animal-free,' Di Leonardo said.
'Businesses must evolve with evolving times, but evolving times simply means new opportunities for savvy entrepreneurs.'