Food for thought

Friday, August 12, 2011

Let’s just think about these comments from Goffstown Zoning Board of Adjustment members Leonard Stuart and Ed Luppi about a proposal for a slaughterhouse on the Goffstown-Bedford line:

Stuart: “I think the slaughterhouse itself is a fine idea, but this is not the right location for it.”

Luppi: “I think it’s a great idea, love to see it in town, but that’s just not the place for it.”

Well, OK, that’s that, the board voted 5-0 to reject the plan and neighbors are happy.

But, we wonder, if it’s a fine idea, but not in the proposed spot, then where?

Well, someone is sure to say, it should go into an industrial district and that probably makes sense but we are willing to bet you that anyone owning an industry next to which a slaughterhouse is proposed will have the same reaction: Not next to me.

And, on the surface, who can blame them? Not a single one of us knows the first darn thing about the workings of a slaughterhouse but we know this: Just the world “slaughterhouse” is a huge turnoff.

The problem is, as long as we’re going to eat animals, we need them and as long as they’re in, oh, say, Chicago, that’s fine, but in Goffstown, next to Bedford? Uh uh.

We don’t blame the neighbors in the residential district for opposing the plan and we believe their contention that their property values would diminish.

The thing is, though, until we all become vegetarians, or butcher our own cows, et. al., slaughterhouses are necessary.

The ZBA members are sincere in intimating that another site might fly, but Negash Abdelkader, whose proposal it is, wants it attached to the back of his garage and who can blame him? He doesn’t want to go to the expense of buying new property, and that’s understandable. So, he says he will appeal the ZBA decision and we’ll see where things go from here.

But what the ZBA needs to understand is that no district in the community will simply accept a slaughterhouse, so even if Abdelkader buys land in an industrial zone and proposes to build there, out will come the opponents.