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Indybay Feature

San Francisco Chipotle Closes in Face of Animal Rights Protests

by Direct Action Everywhere
San Francisco, Saturday, March 29, 2014 – Today, Chipotle Mexican Grill closed a San Francisco restaurant in response to protests by animal rights activists. Demonstrators with Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) arrived at the Chipotle at 121 4th Street in San Francisco to protest against the restaurant, surprised to find it closed. A police officer informed the activists that the restaurant had closed for the afternoon in order to avoid their demonstration, and it remained closed and empty of customers for the duration of DxE’s two-hour protest. Since October, DxE has held monthly protests against Chipotle as part of the group’s “It’s not Food, It’s Violence” campaign. The activists say that, despite Chipotle’s marketing itself as a purveyor of humane and “responsibly raised” meat and dairy, animal agriculture – including inevitable slaughter – is inherently violent. The monthly international demonstrations have now reached 29 cities in 8 countries.
chipotle-protest-direct-action-everywhere.png
“You’ve heard of white washing,” said DxE organizer Saryta Rodriguez. “Well Chipotle is engaged in humane washing. The company is trying to market killing as humane, but there is no escaping the reality that slitting an animal's throat is violent. At bottom, Chipotle’s marketing amounts to moral fraud.”

Despite being widely praised for its simple and elegant product line, industry-leading business methods, and brand new vegan option, Chipotle has faced recent challenges over its corporate practices, including its failure to provide sustainability reports and its controversial use of so-called “humane” marketing. Today, protesters brought images of animals rescued from slaughter to the restaurant and, in a choreographed display, shared the animals’ stories with the public.

In the United States alone, approximately 10 billion animals (not including fish and other sea animals) are killed annually to be eaten. Animals who are killed for their flesh endure intense psychological and physical trauma, and undercover investigations have found that they are routinely eviscerated while still conscious.

Direct Action Everywhere is a network of animal rights activists working to challenge speciesism throughout society. We use creative protest to challenge the use of animals for food, clothing, experimentation, and entertainment. Visit Direct Action Everywhere on facebook https://www.facebook.com/directactioneverywhere and at http://directactioneverywhere.com/. Follow us on Twitter @DxEverywhere.


http://directactioneverywhere.com/theliberationist/2014/3/29/san-francisco-chipotle-closes-in-face-of-animal-rights-protests
Add Your Comments

Comments (Hide Comments)
by Meibo
Shutting them down, even if just for the duration of a demo, is HUGE! Good job, keep it up!
by Dannielle
Where are you getting your food animal slaughter numbers? As of january of this year total beef cattle numbers were less than 100 million animals nationwide. That is all ages and both sexes. Sune for pork production are listed at around 111 million in the US total including all ages amd both sexes.
Want numbers for others too? Youre nowhere near a billion in any way shape or form much less your claim of ten billion.
Processing animals while conscious which you claim is routinely done is just more rage inspiring misinformation. If the goal is for producers to make money it would be counterproductive to process conscious animals as their struggles would damage the meat, injure workers and break handling equipment.
If you want ppl to listen to you and make a moral judgment like you have, dont lie. It undermines your position and destroys your integrity, killing your message right along with it.
Dannielle, the 10 billion slaughter number quoted is from the USDA. It is very straight forward, just look it up yourself. I've included a link to their site to make it easy for you. A little over 90% of the land animals slaughtered in the U.S. are chickens. Roughly 9 billion are brutally slaughtered every year. As for animals being slaughtered while conscious of course it happens all the time. Have you ever actually been inside a slaughterhouse. I have worked inside them and personally witnessed over a million chickens slaughtered inches away from my face. Yes Dannille, not all animals are conscious when slaughtered but I have seen countless chickens even make it all the way to the scalding bath and end up scalded alive. It is a horrific way to die. I've seen the birds struggling to avoid be killed. They want to live every bit at much as you do. I've witnessed horses with their hooves being cut off while hanging upside down still conscious in Alberta etc. I've seen baby pigs have their heads bashed on the concrete floor to kill them, fully conscious at the time. In fact a lot of workers do get hurt by animals who are not fully stunned. Working in a slaughterhouse is one of the most dangerous jobs in the country. It is all about the money. Kosher and Halal animals are by definition slaughtered while conscious. It is a brutal, inherently cruel and sadistic system. It is a scourge on humanity. There is no such thing as humane slaughter. Until we end the senseless slaughter of innocent beings we cannot call ourselves civilized.

http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/animal-products/poultry-eggs/statistics-information.aspx#.Uzhvk_ldXko
by Bryan M
The actual number of animals killed shouldn't matter. Every single death is wrong. Whether it is 10 billion, 100,000 billion or 1, people of good conscience like those at Direct Action Everywhere will continue to speak out against the murder of innocents until the world is free from slaughterhouses. It has been said a single death is a tragedy a million deaths is a statistic. No, a million deaths is a million tragedies.
by Beeline
About one human per year in the U.S. gets killed by a chicken, usually a rooster that was trained and set up for cock fighting with steel knives strapped to the legs. The handler gets sliced up and bleeds to death. Perhaps there is a little justice for chickens after all.

Really I think the mistreatment of animals at all levels stinks. The modern corporate farm and meat factory environment is devoid of anything resembling ethics. Profits are made by processing vast amounts of once living flesh. The U.S. uses about 26.08 billion pounds of chicken meat each year. And as folks have pointed out most consumers don't visit slaughter houses. They think chicken comes from a package. If you do visit a slaughter house- you won't be the same there after.

If we can really take a look at the bigger picture, then we see that killing is very much with us in the U.S. In the "frontier days" people killed off whole species like the passenger pigeon. Factual accounts show that there were billions of passenger pigeons in North America. Humans engaged in killing for profit got every last one. Besides all the animals that are killed, it could also be little kids and grandmothers in foreign countries-blown up by high tech bombs etc.. There is a whole massive enterprise built around killing.

It might not be quite so bad if people still engaged in sacred ceremony for those beings that give up their bodies so that we might live. But far too many people don't care to utter even the simplest of prayers for the bodies of the fallen.

If it is ever re-recognized that food comes from a sacred source then perhaps food chains and food webs and respect for living beings will become more important to the masses. Otherwise we are heading for an apocalypse where wholesome food will become very scarce, and the cockroaches will have their victory dance on our bones.



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