Lazy Media Fête NYC DOH's ACC Between Shutdowns
When deigning to cover ACC, the city press corps usually does more harm than good. This is a choice.
The Scoop New York is a website and newsletter covering the movement for a true no-kill New York State, from BUF to BK. NYC ACC KILLS, published by TSNY, enumerates and memorializes adoptable cats and dogs who were exterminated by Animal Care Centers of New York City.
Headlines from Buffalo to Brooklyn
It’s September 5, 2025. This is The Weekly Poop.
This week marks the first TWP since the non-profit contractor currently known as Animal Care Centers of New York City returned to what passes for functional in the Michelle Morse era.
For 33 days beginning in mid-July, the system closed to public intakes, in violation of ACC’s deal with New Yorkers as an open admission shelter. After a soft reopening, when ACC took intakes by appointment only, either the “out of order” sign is again out of order or the city health department’s kill pound has managed to remain open for several days running.
A de facto New York City government agency with $1.4B+ in public resources at its disposal shutting its doors on New Yorkers for a month is a scandal. That these shutdowns occur on the regular is a scandal. That these recurrent shutdowns may accurately be sourced to perpetual mismanagement and rampant corruption is a scandal.
Rather than report DOH/ACC open-air malfeasance, however, the city press corps, to the extent that news outlets noticed at all, declared “mission accomplished,” for themselves as much as DOH and ACC.
That these stories dropped while ACC was still in appointment-only limp mode — still contrary to the aforementioned arrangement with city taxpayers — was lost on Gothamist and NY1, whose putatively well-meaning, definitely low-effort attempts at coverage likely hurt more than helped.
The trouble with the NY1 piece begins with the oxymoronic cutline:
Animal Care Centers of NYC, the city’s only open-admission shelter system, said Tuesday that it has resumed accepting pets surrendered by their owners by appointment.
JFC.
“Open admission” means open admission. Requiring New Yorkers to make a reservation prior to arrival as it resumes accepting pets is not what an “open” admission shelter does, or would ever do. Because if it did, it wouldn’t be an open admission shelter. “Appointment-only open admission” is like a “vegan” politician who eats meat. I mean, “open” is right. there. How much clearer does it need to be?
The NY1 piece, by Patrick Adcroft, goes on to copy-paste the requisite happy talk-slash-goddamn lies from Katy Hansen and Risa Weinstock, ACC’s answer to Pinky and the Brain, minus the funny.
For the kicker, NY1 high-fived Eric Adams himself for his cameo as “Comically Corrupt Mayor Who Shows Up Halfway Through a Disaster of His Own Making to Playact Concern for Incurious Journos Who Repeat His Lip Service as Gospel,” leaving NY1 consumers with the impression that Mayor Vegan has his shit handled, despite readily-available evidence to the contrary.
Last week’s mid-shutdown City Hall/DOH/ACC propaganda assault was multi-pronged. In addition to declaring the most recent crisis over (it isn’t), the Adams administration dispatched first deputy mayor and ratfucker-4-life Randy Mastro to announce that the mayor has dedicated $3 million to “expedite” the opening of ACC’s Bronx location.
Handing that reveal to Mastro was a nice touch, since he was Rudy Giuliani’s right hand when Mayor 41 Shots founded ACC in 1995. ACC was always supposed to have a facility in each borough. Mastro et al. failed to make that happen at the outset. The Bronx location is three decades late. This is not expediting. It’s retconning.
Naturally, the access-o-press ate it up. From the Gothamist piece, filed by Catalina Gonella:
Weinstock said the Bronx shelter, which is now expected to open in January instead of mid-to-late 2026, spring, will help relieve further overcrowding. The location will have space for about 200 animals and include a veterinary clinic, boosting ACC’s shelter capacity by a third.
And:
A Brooklyn shelter that’s currently being renovated is also set to open next year, according to the ACC.
“ We are really excited for these new shelters and bigger, more modern shelters,” Weinstock said. “It will certainly address symptoms [of overcrowding] and it will help us get closer to addressing root causes because we'll be right there in the communities where animals are coming in. We very much expect as soon as these shelters are open and running they'll get filled up pretty quickly.”
So Weinstock said “the Bronx shelter … will help relieve further overcrowding.” But Weinstock also said “We very much expect as soon as these shelters are open and running they'll get filled up pretty quickly.”
The new facilities will relieve overcrowding. The new facilities will fill up quickly. Which is it?
This is how easy DOH and ACC have it. When not hiding from the press, they lie. They gaslight. They contradict themselves in the same breath. Given the friendly media environment, they know it doesn’t matter.
When Eric Adams brags on your story about Eric Adams, that’s a sign, and not of anything good.
As any ACC watcher will tell you, new DOH ACC locations mean new DOH ACC death houses. They will fill up immediately — the killings and neglect will begin immediately — because ACC higher-ups have never in 30 years done the job New Yorkers pay them to do. Risa told the truth, which means, as with Pinky’s “I don’t know!” confession, Risa made a very public mistake. And she got away with it, because neither NY1 nor Gothamist cared to consult ACC watchers for the un-officialdom perspective.
DOH/ACC are almost never held to account because access journalism, while also an oxymoron, is the most popular type of “journalism” there is.
Fortunately it is not the only type. On Wednesday, WPIX veteran Greg Mocker reported on rescues in Long Island City who are as usual scrambling to do the work DOH and ACC won’t:
[NYC Second Chance Rescue co-founder Jennifer] Brooks is a former schoolteacher. When Animal Care Centers of New York stopped taking pets due to overcrowding during the summer, a network of shelters stepped up.
It’s still at a crisis point.
“We’ve received more calls for help. We took as many as we could, but space and resources are limited,” she says.
As it turns out, then, the ACC meltdown is merely on pause. The system could shut down again at any time. By relying exclusively (and uncritically) on “City Hall officials,” Gothamist and NY1 didn’t just humane-wash their stories, they missed a lead that was right in front of them.
“ New Yorkers really stepped up and they heard [ACC’s] message and they adopted and they fostered and they spread the word, and they helped their friends and neighbors who had pets that they couldn't keep anymore,” Weinstock told Gothamist. “It was really such a community city effort.”
A related Weinstock quote from the NY1 piece: “We never stopped finding homes for pets in our care, and we never stopped being here for animals in urgent need. The difference now is that we have room again, thanks to New Yorkers stepping up.”
Amid all that adopting and fostering and word-spreading, at some point DOH/ACC sent an unknown number of cats to Animal Rescue League of Boston. While the transfer was reported on the receiving end, it appears no one in New York covered it.
“The NYC shelters said in July that they would no longer take animals because of ‘critical capacity issues’ with more than 1,000 pets in their care,” Boston Patch reported on August 27. “The ARL reached out to offer assistance a month ago to help alleviate the space crunch and find cats their path to adoption in New England.”
How many cats did DOH/ACC ship to MA during the shutdown? Did they send dogs as well? If so, how many? Did they send cats and/or dogs to outside agencies other than ARL? If so, what agencies? How many cats and dogs were sent to each? When and how did these transfers take place? How many cats and dogs did ACC actually rehome during the shutdown? How many cats and dogs did ACC offload to rescues during the shutdown?
The Scoop New York sent those questions to ACC, DOH, and the Mayor’s Office of Animal Welfare Thursday afternoon. You know the rest.
There was nothing stopping Gothamist, NY1 or anyone else from posing those same questions. There’s nothing stopping them from asking them now. They’re written in advance, even.
When following up, there’s nothing stopping the media from interrogating DOH/ACC about any number of issues DOH/ACC would rather not discuss. Like publicly-available kill data that debunks The Big Lie, for one.
If that were likely, of course, TSNY would not exist. Until everyone (or anyone, for that matter) else catches on, we’ll be on the beat.
This is old news to paid subscribers and social media followers, but here is the ACC meltdown Sarah McLachlan video, reality-filtered by TSNY:
Have your .5x/pause buttons handy. And volume up for the bad-trip-I-had-that-one-time soundtrack.
If you’d like to receive future bonus TSNY content, like video previews (more to come!), paid subscriptions start at less than $5/month. Paid subs also get you free TSNY schwag and commenting privileges on the site.
The Scoop New York queried Animal Rescue League of Boston concerning animal transfers from NYC ACC during the most recent ACC meltdown. We’ll update this story if we hear back.
Here’s the latest New York companion animal news:
You can love companion animals or you can love watching their adoptive families terrorized by the federal government, but not both.
Shocker(s): Trump wants to handpick New York City’s next mayor and Eric Adams’ grifty sense is tingling.
Related: Curtis Sliwa, who appears not to have an actual campaign platform devoted to helping NYC’s companion animals, has a proposal for how the city should manage cat colonies, which Hell Gate played for yuks.
Surprise! Rather than improve conditions at Buffalo Animal Shelter as he promised, Acting Mayoral Primary-Loser Chris Scanlon is hiding from the press and the public as animals and Buffalonians continue to suffer.
Related? Buffalo Bills WR Khalil Shakir saved 19 dogs from being killed for space by Clarke County Animal Shelter, though thanks to poor copy-paste reporting it’s unclear which Clarke County, as NY doesn’t have one.
Shelters in Saugerties, Binghamton, Utica and Olean are desperate for resources ahead of mandated upgrades that state electeds approved sans the coin needed to see them to fruition, because what else would they do.
Related: New York animal cruelty laws remain pathetically weak.
Related: To relive my Blaze journey, read this before you read this. Also: Those kids should have a street named after them.
The Post has the gut-wrenching story of the nightmare visited upon Bo and Bo’s people by Long Island Veterinary Specialists in Nassau County.
Town of Oyster Bay Animal Shelter is suspending adoption fees across the board through September.
Finally: Godspeed, JP and Gus.
Food recalls
The FDA announced no new pet food recalls this week. However, the agency issued a notice regarding a link between an H5N1 case that sickened a cat who was later euthanized and certain lots of RAWR Raw Cat Food Chicken Eats, where the same H5N1 strain was present.
Nathan Winograd of the No Kill Advocacy Center has details.
Check here for FDA info on prior recalls.