NYC Animal Rights Group Calls For Closure Of Chelsea Pet Store After Abuse Allegations

CHELSEA, NY — An animal rights group is calling for a Chelsea pet store to be shut down after an undercover investigation accused the store of mistreating its puppies.

New Yorkers for Clean, Livable and Safe Streets, also known as NYCLASS, demanded that the Chelsea Kennel Club close its doors on Thursday, just days after the U.S. Humane Society released the results of its undercover investigation into the high-end pet store. NYCLASS, the group behind the push to reform the carriage horse industry in New York, is demanding the the store be shut down.

"It’s a well-documented fact that the Chelsea Kennel Club hurts and neglects dogs and puppies, yet the Department of Health has done nothing to curb this abuse," Edita Birnkrant, the group's executive director, said in a statement. "The City needs to close this business immediately, open an investigation into owner Dana Derragh, and expand existing legislation to ban the sale of dogs from all puppy mills."

The Humane Society deployed an undercover investigator to work at the store, located at 213 Seventh Ave., for two months earlier this year. The investigator wore a hidden camera and kept a journal, logging what she said was mistreatment of the dogs and improper handling of sick puppies. The investigator said the pet shop routinely failed to adequately treat sick dogs and often obscured longterm illness from buyers by telling them their newly purchased canines had simple colds.

The Humane Society said it shared its findings with the New York attorney general's office and Mayor Bill de Blasio's office.

The attorney general's office said it plans "to look into their complaint."

"We have zero tolerance for animal cruelty, and are investigating this facility," a spokeswoman for de Blasio said Tuesday.

Both the NYPD and the city's health department sent investigators to the pet store on Tuesday.

Patch was not able to contact the store's owner for comment, but an employee reached by phone on Tuesday denied the allegations.

Lead image via HSUS.