mayor hopes Congress can close horse slaughter plant [View All]

[Judi Lynn]

Sept. 3, 2006, 1:43PM
mayor hopes Congress can close horse slaughter plant

By PAUL J. WEBER
Associated Press

KAUFMAN -- A mile from one of only three horse slaughter plants in the United States, the stale smell of offal and blood wafts under Mayor Paula Bacon's nose.
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That happens, says Bacon and others, on hot afternoons when a southerly wind carries the smell far beyond the Dallas Crown slaughter mill and the nearby Boggy Bottoms neighborhood. Families say the odor keeps them indoors and Bacon says the plant's "stigma" stifles development and job growth in this rural exurb of 7,000 about 30 miles southeast of Dallas.

Dallas Crown and its Belgium owners have survived a number of attempts in recent years to close the plant — Kaufman's most visible landmark to passing motorists. But the U.S. House could signal its fate with a vote expected Thursday.
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The bill before Congress, known as The American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, aims to shutter Dallas Crown and other horse processing operations in Fort Worth and DeKalb, Ill. Horse meat is not marketed as table fare in the United States, but the slaughter plants process hundreds of horses each week and ship the meat overseas, where horse flesh is considered a delicacy in Europe, Japan and other places.
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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4160397.html