8727: City nabs roostersin cock-fighting raid (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

>>Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 11:35:35 -0700 (PDT)
>
>Published: Thursday, July 5, 2001 Section: Neighbors
>
>NE Page: 3N
>
>CITY NABS 30 ROOSTERS IN COCK-FIGHTING RAID
>
>BY GARIOT LOUISNA, glouisna@herald.com
Memo: LITTLE HAITI
>
>Even after city of Miami officials began removing the
>fighting cocks from a pen in his backyard Friday,
>Albert Noidelus, 54, of Little Haiti, insisted
>the roosters were not his.
>He owned only one rooster, he said, and bought it for
>$200 from cock fighters in Hialeah.
>``I want to get two females for him so I can raise
>small chickens and send some home,'' Noidelus said.``I
>don't fight chickens.''
>That's not what police and code enforcement inspectors
>said when they retrieved about 30 roosters Friday
>morning from Noidelus' home, 7749 NW Second Ct.
>Breaking up cock-fighting rings and trying to get
>residents to rid their yards of chickens and roosters
>is a weekly occurrence in this Little Haiti
>neighborhood, said Raymonde Bruny, city of Miami
>codeenforcement inspector.
>``You leave this block and go to the next and its
>thesame thing,'' Bruny said.
>Bruny is only allowed to cite property owners for code
>violations, she said. Most residents in this
>neighborhood, like Noidelus, rent their homes.
>``There is no deterrent,'' Bruny said. ``We're always
>running after them. Sometimes they throw the cages
>away and the roosters are everywhere. It's common in
>Spanish and Haitian neighborhoods. They think its OK
>to breed animals and the cock fighting that goes
>onhere makes a lot of money.''
>Bruny said she's been working to get the property
>owners to clean up Noidelus' yard since 1998, when she
>first issued a warning. Since the property has changed
>hands, the new owner, Consumer Alliance Corp., gets
>another warning. She said she only recently noticed
>the shed, hidden discreetly behind overgrown vines.
>Harvey Nairin, the neighborhood resources officer, and
>Ray Chasser, who has an urban farm in his backyard,
>rounded up the roosters caught in Friday's raid and
>put them in beige sacks. The roosters were still
>pecking at each other. Bruny took pictures with
>her digital camera.
>The roosters were taken to Chasser's farm in the 7600
>block of Northeast First Avenue and ``processed.''
>``We'll chop the heads off and cook 'em,'' Nairin
>said. ``They can't go on a farm because they
>are fighting chickens.''
>Noidelus said he does not know who owned the 30 or so
>roosters and didn't care if police took them away. He
>even volunteered to help put the roosters in the sacks.
>``I just want my own,'' he insisted, pleading with
>officers to talk Nairin into giving him his bird. ``I
>won't keep it here. I'll send it home.''
>``That one must be a winner,'' Nairin said. ``That's
>why he keeps asking for it.''
>
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