Plans On Hold For Aurora Specialty Butcher Shop
AURORA, Ill. (WBBM/CBS) -- Plans are on hold in Aurora for a specialty butcher shop with live animals.
As WBBM Newsradio 780's Pat Cassidy reports, Fermin Benitas wants to move Fermin's Poultry from his current Chicago location at 5932 S. Pulaski Rd., to Aurora, where he lives.
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He wants to open up at 629 S. River St. in Aurora. But the Aurora City Council Planning and Development Committee earlier this week decided to hold off on a vote, citing the need to wait for health inspection.
Benitas plans to hold live chickens and other animals in a 20-by-24-foot ventilated room, according to Dave Rawlings, architect for the proposed butcher shop. The chickens would then be slaughtered in another room in the facility, cleaned and sold to customers, Rawlings said.
But Planning and Development Committee members have requested Cook County Health Department inspection records of the Chicago butcher shop under the Freedom of Information Act, said 1st Ward Alderman Abby Schuler. City staff is scheduled to receive those records before March 30, according to Tracey Vacek, of the city planning and zoning staff.
Fermin's shop in Chicago has been cited for residue issues related to the animals.
At the Wednesday meeting, Aurora aldermen expressed concerns regarding pictures that Sherman Jenkins, executive director of the Aurora Economic Development Commission, had taken at Benitas' Chicago shop.
In one of the photos, most of the chickens are in wire crates, but about a dozen live chickens are seen roaming the floor of the holding room.
But Rawlings previously said that Benitas' "mom-and-pop shop" would be "considerably more humane" than large animal farms where poultry is slaughtered.
"If it's offensive, it's going to hurt his business," Rawlings said.
Aurora does not have a butcher shop where slaughtering is done on site.
The committee also held off on a vote to allow the specialty butcher shop March 10.
The Planning and Development Committee will reconsider the proposal on April 14.
The Aurora Beacon-News contributed to this report, via the Sun-Times Media Wire
