The bunnies sat in stacked cages on the downtown sidewalk. They nibbled
on lettuce as passers-by stopped to pet them. How much? A young woman
cheerfully named her price. ($20 is the going rate.)
"No photographs," she said, passing a hand in front of a rabbit as a
photographer snapped pictures.
On a sunny Saturday, she scanned the throngs coursing along Maple Avenue
toward 12th Street, en route to the Santee Alley shopping bazaar.
Suddenly, she gasped. She and other vendors whisked black garbage bags
over the cages, grabbed them and anything else they could carry and
scurried off.
In seconds, they were swarmed by half a dozen yellow-shirted Business
Improvement District security officers and a Los Angeles police officer.
A bucket of turtles ended up dropped in the middle of 12th Street.
Security officer Alondra Alonzo tussled with one vendor, wresting a bag
of rabbits from her grip. The vendor, annoyed, walked off with a single
rabbit.
"It’s 5 months old," said the woman, who identified herself as Stacy
Martinez when asked if the animal was unweaned. "They are well taken
care of." She handed the caged rabbit to a little girl, who placed it on
her lap.
In the weeks before Easter, the illegal bunny trade is booming in
downtown Los Angeles. "It’s kind of a perennial problem," said Lt. Paul
Vernon of the LAPD, especially around holidays.
In Los Angeles, selling anything on the sidewalk is against the law.
Though the sale of animals may not be on an economic par with the
selling of counterfeit designer handbags and bootleg DVDs, what makes it
particularly egregious to animal rescuers, the Department of Animal
Services and law enforcement officers is that the animals are usually
unweaned, malnourished and destined to die once buyers get them home.
An arrest for illegal sidewalk selling brings a citation. But if an
animal control officer can certify that the animals are being badly
kept, the vendor can be arrested on suspicion of felony animal cruelty.
Two weeks ago, LAPD Officer Matthew Shafer arrested a man downtown on
suspicion of animal cruelty and confiscated more than 100 animals,
including rabbits and iguanas. "I try to get them at their point of
entry: parking lots," Shafer said.
Earlier Saturday, Shafer, downtown security officers and rabbit
rescuers had set out to a rooftop parking lot. There, in an unlocked
Chevy van, they found a container full of dozens of green turtles
clambering over one another.
"For these people, this is just a business," said Shafer.
Shafer, who owns three rescue dogs, said collaring sidewalk vendors
illegally selling DVDs and animals is "my favorite thing."
"I know all the players down here," he said. And they know the tall,
hazel-eyed cop. They have nicknamed him Guero — a not-so-endearing term
for "white boy."
The vendors rely on lookouts — on foot, scooters and bicycles — to
warn them by cellphone, walkie-talkie or air horn that officers are
approaching, he said.
But on this Saturday, that didn’t stop Shafer from arresting a vendor
who gave her name as Veronica Maldonado. As she stood by, handcuffed,
rabbit rescuer Lejla Hadzimuratovic cradled two tiny bunnies, just days
old, their eyes unopened. She will take all the underage rabbits home
and nurse them with kitten formula and colostrum pills. (By the way,
she said, lettuce destroys the systems of young rabbits.)
"They might survive," she said of her charges.
— Carla Hall
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Top photo: A street vendor slips a plastic bag over cages containing rabbits and turtles as she scrambles to leave the corner of 12th St. and Maple Ave. in L.A. Credit: Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times
Bottom photo: From left, Mackenzie Fick, Shawn Evelyn and Jeannie Aguilar, members of rescue group the Bunny World Foundation, hold young rabbits confiscated from illegal vendors in L.A.’s Fashion District. Credit: Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times