Slaughterhouse Proposal Denied:Council Unanimously Rejects Owners’ Petition to Withdraw Proposal, Then Denies Application

By Joseph Domelowicz Jr.

To the surprise of absolutely no one who has been watching the saga unfold, the Everett City Council voted last Tuesday to reject a last ditch effort by the owners of Saba Live Poultry to withdraw their proposal for a Halal slaughterhouse on Revere Beach Parkway and instead voted unanimously to reject the application, meaning the proposal cannot come before the city again for two years.

Had the proponents been allowed to withdraw their petition, they could have sought to bring the proposal back before the city in six months. However, City Councilor Michael McLaughlin, in whose district the proposed slaughterhouse would have been built, said before the meeting that he had no interest in seeing the proposal come back before the city and marshalled the votes to kill the proposal for good.

McLaughlin’s efforts were made easier by the Council’s earlier Council of the Whole hearing on the proposal, during which councilors questioned the proponents’ business history in other cities, including reported health code violations and disagreed with the proponents’ explanation of the timeline surrounding their application and the permitting process in the city of Everett.

In the end, the Committee of the Whole found that “the petitioners have been less than forthcoming,” and voted to recommend denial of the application to the full Council.

Given that the petitioners had requested the right to withdraw their proposal and had already signaled their intention to look for another city to open in through their attorney, it is likely that the proposal is now defunct in Everett.

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