A controversial poultry slaughterhouse in Alexandria has gotten hit with a warning from zoning officials, accused of adding rabbits to the menu when it's only approved to sell chicken and other birds.
The slaughterhouse is denying the allegations.
The D.C. Poultry Market was approved back in 2019 after a contentious city council vote. A steady stream of customers from across the DMV comes to the halal slaughterhouse for their poultry needs. The chicken and other birds are butchered on site, and several hundred are processed by hand each week.
"It's usually live here, so that's why it tastes juicier," said one customer. "It's fresh."
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But a local reporter at the Alexandria Times recently learned that the market was allegedly selling rabbits, too.
The D.C. Poultry Market's special use permit makes it clear that only poultry can be offered at the business.
In late April, the company posted a marketing video on its Facebook page, in which rabbits can be seen caged alongside chickens.
The city's director of planning and zoning told us that when an inspector visited on Wednesday, he didn't find any rabbits. But he says the manager admitted they had been selling them.
A warning notice was immediately issued.
Alexandria council member Amy Jackson, who voted against the special use permit in 2019, says the new discovery renews her worries about compliance.
"I don't want to be in the 'give an inch, take a mile' kind of episode either, which is where I think we are with this particular challenge," she said.
The company that operates the market in Alexandria has 20 other businesses like it, in eight states. CEO Abdul Mased declined an on-camera interview, but spoke with News4's Julie Carey by phone on Thursday.
"We sell rabbits at all our other stores but we have never sold rabbits at that [Alexandria] location," Mased said.
He told us, "That video was made at another store."
An ad appeared on the Alexandria market's Facebook page on May 3, showing poultry and rabbits. Mased says it was a marketing mistake.
But in customer comments, one wrote, "We will want to buy a rabbit."
The store account replied, "We will have rabbits tomorrow."
The warning notice triggered a change: The city will be conducting more frequent inspections.
But Jackson has asked that the business and its operations be reviewed as part of the September council agenda. She wants a poultry market representative there.
"I think it's a good time to bring this forward and make sure that everything they are doing is concerning compliance and so safety and security of what they are selling the public," she said. "I'd like to see the documentation that everybody is doing what they said they are going to do."
Another big question Jackson wants answered: What role is Virginia's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services playing?
She believes they, too, should be conducting regular inspections.
On Thursday afternoon, a state agriculture spokesman told News4 that they do quarterly inspections at D.C. Poultry Market. The most recent inspection was in mid-May.
