Slaughterhouse closure would slaughter jobs, economy

Will you let liberals raid your refrigerator? That’s the ultimate goal of a Denver ballot measure to ban slaughterhouses within city limits. If the measure passes, it would close the only facility operating within city limits, tossing workers out of their jobs, and have a ripple effect on Colorado’s livestock industry. Vote yes and not just Denver is in for a surprise.

A win by these very odd advocates will upend the availability and cost of lamb and open the door to a broad, national attack on workers, ranchers and the American agricultural economy. Aren’t we blowing the potential closing of one industrial facility way out of proportion? Sadly, no. This initiative is about the emotion-driven policy of a small mob of far-left advocates picking out an industry they don’t like, and shutting down a legally-operating plant.

Here’s what they are targeting. The plant, in the Globeville section of Denver, is one of the largest lamb processing facilities in the nation, responsible for one-fifth of the market. It employs about 150 workers.

But, according to a study by Common Sense Institute, the economic effects on the livestock industry in the state would amount to a loss of approximately 2,000 jobs and a $760 million hit to the state’s economy. So why shut it down? Their arguments are that the plant is a “nuisance” in the area, with bad smells “unsightly industrial facades, and the disagreeable nature of their operations.” Plus working in a slaughterhouse is dangerous and traumatizing, they assert.

That, of course, could apply to any number of facilities not on the liberal hit list. Using the ballot to target industries — and jobs — just because mobs don’t like them is a really bad idea. Advocates also say closing this one facility will strike a blow in the war on climate change.

Really? In fact, the same CSI study makes the case that if this measure passes, it will just alter the lamb marketplace, not end it. So, for example, Colorado producers will be trucking lambs someplace, likely far away from Denver resulting in a lot more carbon from fossil-fuel powered trucks. Perhaps the most irritating of their arguments is that these benevolent leftists will liberate workers from their nasty jobs.

And then what? Their measure supposedly requires the City of Denver to “prioritize” these workers for retraining in other industries. Yet there are no guarantees nor are there any new dollars associated with this measure to help displaced workers. It is arrogant and cavalier to play political games with the lives of people few of these elitists have ever met.

Dive into the advocacy materials and one quickly learns that this ill-considered measure is not really about bad smells or climate change or even the safety of workers. It’s about micromanaging the American diet, telling you what you can and cannot eat. The same liberals who say they want government to stay out of your bedroom are happy to have it invade your kitchen.

This measure is part of a national strategy to abolish meat eating. And what political luck! A major facility, processing hundreds of thousands of lambs per year, just happens to be in one of America’s most liberal cities. Will Denver voters buy the appeal to what advocates call society’s evolving “morality and shared understanding” so that we will heed our more evolved and enlightened superiors and “transition away from meat on a societal level”? Banning slaughterhouses nationwide, they say, will create “a society beyond cruelty.

” It’s a carniphobe utopia! An end to the entire American livestock industry. Finally the dreaded bacon cheeseburger – a triple threat – will be no more. A healthier choice of a chicken salad? Adios.

Coloradans, we must evolve to the higher plane dictated by a group of liberal fascists (to borrow a phrase from author Jonah Goldberg). Fresh from locking you in your homes, shutting schools and churches and forcing us to wear useless masks, they now are embarking on dictating your diet. Want to seize my In-N-Out Double Double? Out of my cold dead hands.

Sean Duffy, a former deputy chief of staff to Gov. Bill Owens, is a communications and media relations strategist and ghostwriter based in the Denver area..