Published: August 25, 2006 12:55 am      

PET SHOP RAID: Pets Plus reaches settlement

A six-week-long battle over alleged animal cruelty at Pets Plus has ended.

The Niagara County District Attorney’s Office, Erie County SPCA and Pets Plus counsel reached a settlement Thursday in Lockport City Court.

The deal will dismiss the 36 animal cruelty charges against the pet store as long as the corporate entity is not charged with anything else within the next six months. The store will be getting 87 of its animals back with housing tomorrow but will have to give up 72 of them to the SPCA.

SPCA general counsel Becky Powell said the store also will pay $1,350 for the care of the animals and will have quarterly inspections of the store for three years, led by the Niagara County SPCA.

Thursday’s court date was originally supposed to include a hearing on the amount Pets Plus should pay for the care of the seized creatures.

Powell said the settlement will satisfy the case.

“The goal of this is to do right for the animals,” Powell said. “We realized a way to work this out.”

About 200 reptiles and amphibians were seized July 11 from the West Avenue store by the Erie County SPCA after the Department of Environmental Conservation received a complaint about illegal exotic animals. On July 28, Pets Plus was charged with 36 counts of animal cruelty.

Representatives of the SPCA and Pets Plus seemed happy with Thursday’s outcome, but for very different reasons.

“We are not here to be unfair to animals or business owners,” Powell said. “We often ask for forfeiture and visitation. We just want the best for the animals.”

Powell said the Erie SPCA is planning to train its Niagara sister on what to look for during upcoming animal cruelty inspections. Erie County SPCA spokesman Gina Browning said the group will continue to care for the 72 animals they deemed the sickest.

The SPCA has continued to receive calls about the creatures, Browning added.

Pets Plus co-owner Fred Kick and attorney George V.C. Muscato considered the settlement a victory.

“If we were running such a bad operation, why not prosecute us further,” Muscato said.

Kick said the creatures that are being returned are valued at $15,500. He claims many of the geckos and tree frogs the SPCA is keeping arrived a few days before the raid from Indonesia.

“They aren’t perfect when they come in,” Kick said. “We have to worm them, re-hydrate them and get them ready to sell.”

Each of the 36 charges represent one animal that SPCA employees deemed ill. Kick said he did not believe anyone who said the creatures were unhealthy had enough reptile knowledge to discern their true conditions.

Both reptile specialist and temporary Erie County SPCA employee David Smith and Joel Thomas, the Erie County SPCA’s wildlife administrator and a state-licensed veterinarian technician, gave supporting depositions in the case. A Buffalo Zoo veterinarian also has been working with the SPCA to care for the animals.

As for the creatures that were “red-tagged” to stay in place at the store, neither Kick nor Browning knew what the DEC was planning to next. Kick said he received a call from the DEC saying the animals marked as illegal were targeted incorrectly because the store keeps them for sale, not as pets.

“We have nothing illegal in our facility,” Kick said.

Kick said he often sells the animals in other states where the pets are legal to own.

Muscato said he is pleased that the Niagara County SPCA will be handling the quarterly inspections because the store is within the same county. Jurisdiction was one of the topics the attorneys were set to discuss with Judge William J. Watson.

The Niagara County group was originally called on the Pets Plus case, but the agency would not have been able to handle the number of reptiles that were seized. Executive director Albert J. Chille has previously said he gave permission to the Erie County group.

Now that the criminal case against the store is finished, Kick said he is ready to celebrate.

“I’m going to Disneyland and I’m taking George (Muscato) with me,” Kick said.

Contact Tasha Kates at 439-9222, Ext. 6241.