SARA Will Live to See Another Day. Countless Homeless Cats and Dogs Won’t.
The only people who oppose SARA are the ones killing adoptable animals – and politicians like David Weprin, Joseph Addabbo, Donna Lupardo and Michelle Hinchey.
The Scoop New York is a newsletter dedicated to companion animals and the New Yorkers who care for them, from Buffalo to Brooklyn. NYC ACC KILLS, published by TSNY, enumerates and memorializes adoptable cats and dogs who were nonetheless exterminated by Animal Care Centers of New York City.
Heroes are for movies.
No state legislators stepped up for the Shelter Animal Rescue Act at the last minute. Not its primary sponsors from 2022. Nor any of its co-sponsors. SARA is not happening this year, and that means another year of hell for homeless cats and dogs across New York.
For the uninitiated, SARA would require animal control facilities statewide to surrender cats and dogs to qualified rescues, rather than kill them. That’s it. That’s the bill.
So what’s the problem?
The Scoop New York asked the offices of Assembly Member David Weprin (D-Queens) and state Senator Joseph Addabbo (D-Queens) why, though they were SARA’s primary sponsors in 2022, they refused to take it up this session. We asked if they were still interested in seeing SARA pass and, if not, what changed their minds.
We asked Assembly Member Donna Lupardo (D-Binghamton) and state Senator Michelle Hinchey (D-Kingston) why they killed SARA in their respective agriculture committees in 2022, and whether they intend to do so again, if given the opportunity.
We asked why the names of some legislators who agreed publicly to co-sponsor SARA did not appear as co-sponsors on the Assembly web site.
We asked whether campaign money given by the New York State Animal Protection Federation PAC to Hinchey affected SARA’s status – though this one is of course pretty self-explanatory and, experience suggests, all but answered by the silence that greets the question.
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For now, silence will have to do. The Scoop New York received no responses from Weprin, Addabbo, Lupardo or Hinchey. And what would they say? “Sure, I love puppy dogs, but not as much as I love my government parking placard”? Their inaction speaks louder than any words could.
Lupardo and Hinchey recently teamed up to get a cannabis bill passed, so we know (a) they’re awake, and (b) they can get things done, and quickly, when they feel like it.
Meanwhile, the massacre carries on. NYC ACC will continue to drug, surgically mutilate and put to death thousands of cats and dogs who would thrive if given a chance in healthy home environments. Upstate, where SARA would arguably do even more good, countless (by design – more on that later) companion animals will continue to die alone and in fear so that David Weprin, Joseph Addabbo, Donna Lupardo, Michelle Hinchey and others of their ilk can remain in power.
Or so they think, since the only people who oppose SARA, other than career politicians, are the ones doing the actual killing.
Which is why SARA will be back. Preparations for the next session are happening now. SARA is too innocuous, too truly “common sense,” to be opposed by anyone who has no personal interest in seeing it fail.
SARA is dead. Long live SARA.