A 17-year-old high schooler’s online petition to shut down a pet shop in Melbourne’s CBD has gathered more than 15,000 digital signatures within days of being created.
Tahlia Weir set up the petition after seeing what she describes as depressed and lethargic-looking puppies and kittens at @Pets, a pet shop in Melbourne Central.
“I’d already seen a lot of complaints about the pet shop [online] and I’d been there a lot myself and I always thought, ‘Ugh, disgusting’ and I should do something,” Ms Weir said. “So I did.”
A student at Ballarat Secondary College, Ms Weir has directed her petition a Melbourne Central which leases the premises to @Pets.
She hopes to collect enough digital signatures for the centre to take notice.
I don’t know how many I need to get before it has a serious impact but I’m going to aim for around 30,000.
– Tahlia Weir
A spokesman for the GPT Group, which manages Melbourne Central, said that it had contacted the RSPCA on several occasions to inspect the store and meet with the owner and was advised that the store complied with all rules and regulations.
Allie Jalbert, inspectorate manager of RSPCA Victoria, said that they had visited the store and not found any breaches of the Prevention to Cruelty to Animals Act.
The Melbourne City Council was ultimately responsible for conducting inspections and enforcing the relevant codes of practice, she said.
Store owner Joy Yi Luo said the caging and condition of the animals are strictly regulated by the council and the RSPCA.
“They say that it’s very cruel once you put an animal into the cage and that they should be out, but I said that’s what the council requires us to [do]”, Ms Luo said.
“So we had to do that. That’s no choice.”
Lonely wait: A puppy waits to be bought. Photo: Tahlia Weir
Ms Luo, who has operated the store for almost two years, said that she empathises with the petitioners and believes they are acting with good intentions but insists she also has the animals’ interests at heart.
“We are not … cruel to the animals. We are loving the animals otherwise I [wouldn’t] open the pet shop.”
The petition comes as the Victorian state government introduced tougher regulations on the sale of pets, with pet stores now being required to keep detailed records on every dog or cat offered for sale including where they are sourced from.
As part of the new rules effective as of July, the state government plans to limit all pet shops in the state to only sell dogs or cats supplied by registered animal shelters.
But even that won’t appease the schoolgirl activist.
“I don’t really care where they source from, it’s more how they treat the animals when they’re actually in the pet store,” Ms Weir said.
GPT Group said it would honour the existing lease but it would look at the longer-term future of pet stores in the centre.
