NYC ACC Can't Decide If NYC ACC Kills Animals for Space

When you lie for a living, every now and then a truth is bound to slip out.

Aug 14, 2026

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Published by TSNY, NYC ACC KILLS enumerates and memorializes adoptable cats and dogs who were exterminated by Animal Care Centers of New York City.

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Headlines from Buffalo to Brooklyn

It’s August 14, 2026. This is The Weekly Poop.

This week, we’re doing some housekeeping.

Every normal human person who has given Animal Care Centers of New York City [sic] more than a passing glance knows the NYC “shelter” system kills adoptable animals for space. Every day.

They kill for other reasons, too, like personal spite, contempt for animals and New Yorkers alike, and just for the lulz.

And since it’s easier than rehoming — work that ACC personnel are neither all that interested in nor very good at — and since they lack the ability to plan for contingencies no matter how many years and millions of dollars they are granted to do so, and since there’s not a politician in the city or state about to lift a finger to stop them, ACC is sure to put to death one to two of every 10 cats and two to three of every 10 dogs who come in the door.

The Greatest City in The World™ has a low-rent rinky-dink kill pound with a kill quota. Count it on the clock.

To hear CEO Risa Weinstock tell it, though, ACC is killing cats and dogs “the public does not want.”

This video is circa 2013. In case you can’t make sense of the word salad Weinstock is attempting to serve to an audience that is not having it, here are a few money quotes:

Why do animals get euthanized? They get sick. They get very sick. They are too sick for someone from the public who wants to adopt them. That’s why they’re on the list.

The unfortunate thing is the public does not want certain animals.

There’s a certain number of animals that our shelters can hold. We have a capacity issue. We do not have the resources or the space to keep animals forever. That’s a sad reality of the shelter world.

So a cat or dog who gets very sick is a death row candidate because they got very sick. Notice Weinstock doesn’t mention that nine times out of 10 animals get sick at ACC because ACC is as sanitary as a porta-potty on Lollapalooza day three, and always has been.

Excuses and lies notwithstanding, as of 2013, according to Risa Weinstock, NYC DOH ACC was killing for space.

But wait! Here’s ACC designated liar Katy Hansen speaking to Chelsea News for an impressively thorough story published in 2022:

ACC spokesperson Katy Hansen told Straus News that Weinstock’s statement in the video is outdated, reflecting a time when their intake was higher. Hansen states that currently “[the ACC] do not euthanize for space but only in cases where behavior or medical conditions preclude an animal getting placed,” and that they now have “over a 90% placement rate” for their animals.

Hansen tells too many howlers in that short graf to address them all here, so for our purposes the lie to remember is that as of 2022 ACC “[did] ‘not euthanize for space.’”

We’re also gonna set the playback to max speed for that time Hansen told a gullible and lazy QNS.com reporter there “is actually no such a thing as a no-kill shelter,” for a story that ran under what might be the most vacuous headline in the history of print journalism.

So in 2013 killing for space was a “sad reality.” Nine years later ACC killed “only in cases where behavior or medical conditions preclude an animal getting placed.” That remains the company line today.

(Left unsaid is the fact that the City Council, DOH and ACC agreed to fairy-dust the word “healthy” to mean animals "who do not require medical, behavioral, or foster care to make them ready for adoption." That’s its own story, arriving imminently.)

“The fact is they kill dogs still listed as adoptable the day they kill them. So if they’re not killing them for space, why are they killing them?”

The claim that ACC doesn’t kill healthy animals is easily disproved, even if you play along with DOH/ACC’s own hilariously corrupt fake definition.

As one advocate I spoke with for this column told me: “The fact is they kill dogs still listed as adoptable the day they kill them. So if they’re not killing them for space, why are they killing them?”

Aw hell, let’s give ‘em that too. Sure, Council Member Epstein, everyone knows a dog who needs a foster is too sick for any outcome but the death chamber. You’re the north star here, after all!

You know what — I’ve got company coming from the city for the weekend and need to get to the airport, so let’s wrap this up.

Here are two screen grabs, courtesy New York City and NYC DOH ACC itself. Follow the red rectangles:

Not much ambiguity there. No mention of health or behavior or any other slapdash reason for applying the needle.

“To avoid having to make difficult euthanasia decisions based solely on space constraints” is what you’d call a smoking gun, if ACC bigs weren’t so inept as to advertise it on their own website.

And that’s it. Except: