In a letter to the city and restaurant owners, attorneys representing the protesters, say the city used “contrived, specious legal theories” to retaliate against Duck Alliance AZ’s “peaceful protests.” The letter outlines a cycle of officers claiming a problem, protesters responding with a remedy and then officers returning with a new problem. The attorneys also say the city coordinated with and favored the restaurant owners, selectively enforcing rules when the restaurant complained, but ignoring complaints filed by protesters when they said they faced harassment.
AZ CENTRAL: A pair of animal rights activists say police officers are illegally blocking them from protesting outside a high-end restaurant in the city’s downtown. Sotero Guzman and Chris Serbic of the Duck Alliance AZ began protesting Elliott’s Steakhouse in April for serving foie gras, a controversial luxury dish. But over the course of four months, the activists claim police repeatedly limited their protests, threatened to arrest them, forced them to walk continuously in a loop to avoid arrest and then detained one demonstrator “without probable cause.”
In a letter to the Chandler city attorney and owners of Elliott’s Steakhouse, attorneys from Arizona State University’s First Amendment Clinic, who are representing the protesters, say the city used “contrived, specious legal theories” to retaliate against Duck Alliance AZ’s “peaceful protests.”
The letter outlines a cycle of officers claiming a problem, protesters responding with a remedy and then officers returning with a new problem. The attorneys also say the city coordinated with and favored the restaurant owners, selectively enforcing rules when the restaurant complained, but ignoring complaints filed by protesters when they said they faced harassment.
The attorneys asked the city to “immediately cease any retaliatory activity that infringes on (the protesters’) right to protest on the public sidewalk in front of Elliott’s.” They warned that if city officials did not respond, they would consider suing.
“Protesters cannot be targeted with threats of arrest because an influential business and police force find their speech inconvenient,” attorney Aaron Baumann said. Elliott’s Steakhouse owners, Jackie Hall and Gavin Jacobs, own four restaurants in downtown Chandler…
Duck Alliance AZ has protested at restaurants, hotels and resorts across Arizona. In Chandler, roughly a dozen protesters would stand on the sidewalk just outside the restaurant patio, holding posters with photos of struggling or slain ducks, and banners saying “complicit in duck torture.” They chanted and used megaphones, initially. Videos during the protests show the restaurant avoided seating customers outside…
The sale of foie gras is banned in multiple countries due to animal welfare concerns. California outlawed the sale and production of foie gras in 2004, and a few U.S. cities have sought to end it, too. In October, the national Duck Alliance group claimed victory after Omni Hotels said it would stop selling the dish…
The dish exists only because of gavage — forced feeding — where workers shove metal tubes down the birds’ throats twice a day, pumping in so much grain and fat that their organs balloon to grotesque proportions, sometimes over ten times their natural size. The process fattens the duck’s liver, which is the basis for the dish. The birds sometimes “stagger or collapse under their own weight, while others rip out their own feathers or lash out at flock-mates because of the pressure and pain”. TAYLOR SEELY
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