For two years, the San Francisco activist group LGBT Compassion led a vigorous campaign to ban live poultry sales in the city’s Civic Center Farmers Market. On May 27, 2011, they won!

See Activists End Live Bird Sales at San Francisco’s Farmers Markets!

The group next turned its attention to the Richmond CA farmers market, the last known Bay Area farmers market to continue selling live birds. Joined by In Defense of Animals, the activists have been holding weekly protest demonstrations and documenting the horrific cruelty to which chickens are subjected by the vendors, who stuff them crying in grocery bags for customers to purchase, take away, and kill.

Blitzed with complaints, the Richmond City Council held a special meeting last evening (Sept. 27) to decide the future of chicken sales in Richmond. There IS NO FUTURE! The City Council voted to ban live chicken sales effective November 1, 2011. The city attorney agreed with LGBT Compassion’s position that a new California law effective January 1, 2012, prohibiting live animal sales in public places, does not exclude poultry. This will allow activists to attack live poultry markets elsewhere in the state.

Last night’s city council meeting was a tremendous success, said Andrew Zollman of LGBT Compassion and Hope Bohanec of IDA. 19 animal activists attended the meeting and made public statements supporting the ban on live poultry sales in Richmond.

For more information and updates, go to www.upc-online.org/livemarkets/ and visit www.lgbtcompassion.org and www.idausa.org.