Police in Ogden, Utah, were called to a man’s home when neighbors say that they heard a moo, a shot, and saw the man cutting off a cow’s head. The police came and declared that the man is allowed to butcher the animal at his home. And you thought your neighbors’ lady leg lamp in the front window was disturbing.
The man was first spotted driving the cow to the home and then neighbors reported that they heard the mooing and shot. However, the man insisted that he shot the cow outside city limits. The police arrived, according to the report, when the man was working a saw and “the cow was in the process of losing its head.”
Assuming that he did not shoot the cow within the city (which would be a misdemeanor), it turns out to be perfectly legal to butcher a cow in your drive way. The police simply suggested that the man pick a less visible spot. Otherwise, it might raise a question of disorderly conduct.
Source: Standard
So… there is no law against traumatizing children by sawing a head off in front of them and spilling kilos of guts? Even as an adult it would shake me considerably.
Once again, amoral does not mean illegal.
HenMan and OS, :-). Thank you and good night.
HenMan,
That was great…
raff,
From my understanding with zoning…so long as he was in his driveway…they did not see or hear a discharge of a weapon…while not widely done anymore is not illegal….in lots of communities……One of the most affluent communities in Texas still allowed 4 chickens and a rooster until about the fall of 2008. It appears after years of people not having them a kid heard about it, I think the Dad was an attorney….and did the deed…the neighbors complained….the dad showed the Local Ordinance…he was written a ticket…he took it to court, it got dismissed and from what I understand…they still have them…Now since then, the zoning has been corrected and amended to state that this cannot happen anymore…They could not even give him a ticket for noise violations which they tried…This was Highland Park, Texas…so..if it could have happened they would have stopped it…
Did the butcher sell the burgers and steaks or we they all for his own consumption? There is no way that he shot the cow outside the city limits and then dragged the carcass to his house. I can’t believe that there are no health department rules or laws to prevent this kind of on the street butchery.
Homeowners’ associations are the refuge of petty tyrants all over the country. Here in New England they are pretty rare, as most housing stock is older. I don’t know what I would do if I had to move elsewhere.
Utah…..I’m surprised at the complaint.
Having lived in nearby Montana where it was odd when people didn’t have an antlered beastie hanging from its hocks by chains in the garage, I don’t see the issue.
My first hunting trip was a disaster but I still firmly believe that people who eat meat should know where it comes from. A living creature.
What I find really disgusting these days is the empty bank owned housing that is be left to rot to fettidness by banks and ‘investors’ that pushed an economy and entire industry to the brink….those houses are growing weeds, attracting rodents and vermin, crumbling to a point of being uninhabitable….
Yuck … except for the mustang
Hi, AY. Yes, when I was a child we raised chickens in an urban backyard (I bet the neighbors loved the rooster!) and my Dad slaughtered them right on the grass, but the remains were quickly disposed of and a chicken is pretty small in comparison with a farm animal. (BTW, we kids objected to the “wringing of the necks” but we ate the dinner anyway!)
Merry,
Properly butchered beef is an art….Aged beef is better than all of the chemicals used to process….If you look at anything in the store it all has preservatives in it…also…at this moment live stock is being slaughtered early to keep it from dying in the fields…
As a child, I recall one neighbor raised chickens….and one fall another butchered a pig in his back yard…
FYI, Houston and most of the surrounding areas thereby have no zoning regulations….so what is a neighbor to do….
Gene,
Silence of the lambs comes to mind….is that why you did not hear from the neighbor anymore…lol…
Yeah…people can be pains in the asses….The HOA that I live in is kind of quirky….the person that is in charge of “grounds” etc…has the worst yard in the hood…so, I cut about 3 strips on his side so it does not look to bad….When his yard is mowed…he leaves grass tracks….does not edge, vac or blow…..He always compliments on how nice this yard is….
So this man intended to slaughter and cut up the carcass in his driveway in a populous area, and did he have a plan for the remains? First of all, a freezer would be required for the meat — a very BIG freezer — and that’s only if one would want to eat meat that had been sitting in the driveway for hours in the hot afternoon sun, considering how much time it takes to butcher. I’m sure he’ll be tanning the hide, but knowing urban areas, he’ll have to fight off dogs of all sizes for the bones. Then there’s the little question of blood. Perhaps the street would run with blood for days, mixed with all of those sloppy messy innards.
Seems to me there was a distinct lack of planning beyond “kill the cow.”
AY,
I’m pretty easy to get along with as a general rule, however, this clown wanted to tell me that HOA rules forbade having non-working vehicles parked in the driveway and he was going to blah blah blah. About 3 inches from my face and screaming. That’s usually when I cease to be easy to get along with. To make things worse, he was about 4ft tall.
I told him that having a “non-working vehicle” and doing regular maintenance were not the same thing and he was free to complain to whomever he liked but that since he barged on to my property acting like Napoleon he was best advised to get out of my face and out of my driveway before I had him arrested for criminal trespass or simply decided to flip him like a coin. I would have been different if it was an old beater up on blocks I was restoring or saving for the Redneck Olympics, but it wasn’t. The car in question was a daily driver (capable but not used that way) cherry 1973 Mustang convertible. His wife (the poor soul) later came over and apologized, but shorty never said boo to me after that. I later sold the car to a friend for his son who through no fault of his own (a cookie truck ran a red light) totaled the car.
I sure do miss that car. The HOA? Not so much.
At least I wasn’t butchering the car. But you know what they say about a Mustang. Once on the lips, forever on the hips. High in iron though.
One could say that the neighbor who called the police had a beef with the butcher’s actions.
Growing up in the country….this is not all that uncommon….
Gene, you piss someone off…yeah right….
The last (and I mean the very last) time I lived in a neighborhood with a HOA, one of their lil’ Gestapo creeps decided to give a ration of crap for changing my car’s oil in my drive way. I told him in no uncertain terms to piss off, but I wish I would have had this story instead. I’d have just handed him a copy and told him he should be glad all I was doing was a bit of routine maintenance.
I would have thought the gun shot would have been illegal. Probably not the butchery though because there would have been no reason to outlaw something nobody does in town.
You can have my abattoir when you pry it from my cold dead fingers!
The shot heard round the city limits?