This is currently an ongoing page, but I will answer some of the more oft asked questions to start with.
1 Who is J.C. Cutters?
J.C. Cutters is actually J.C. Cutters, Ltd. John and Charlie were the people who started the business in 1984, and added Cutters as in cutter sleigh into the name.
2. Who owns J.C. Cutters?
On paper, the company is owned by Laurence Hermelee. He retired in 2005, retaining nominal ownership of the business while slowly selling it to one of the authors of this blog.
3. Where is Laurence Hermelee in all of this? Isn't he taking any interest in all of this? Isn't he providing any money towards the defense?
Larry is most definitely taking an interest in the goings on. There are some things that just cannot be discussed in a public forum. As far as money goes, he has not received any money from J.C. Cutters since January 2008. The economy struck the industry hard, and funds went to take care of outstanding debts ahead of him. Larry was fully aware of this and was fine with the course that was taken. What none of us foresaw was the City of Chicago denying us our licenses, which in turn cut us off from any potential income.
4. Chicago ACC took your horses because you had so many citations. Isn't it usually the case of where there's smoke, there's fire?
Not in this instance, no. The ordinance, as written, is very vague. It states two things. 1) Stables must be kept in a clean and wholesome condition. 2) All barns must have screens in place on windows and doors from April 15th to November 15th. We received many tickets for the screens. We received many tickets for "unwholesome conditions." Because the ordinance is vague, AC took advantage of it. The stalls could be freshly cleaned with little or no poop, and we'd get a ticket for a pile of junk. Our standards of keeping a stall clean have not changed in 20 years and more. In fact, the way the ordinance is written, every carriage company in Chicago is in violation of the law at all times.
The other part of the equation is the nonstop calls that ACC and Consumer Services received from a combination of people. Certain people in the industry, someone I fired for not keeping up with their share, and when one person couldn't get their way, they hooked up with Animal Rights Activists. The decision was made at Animal Control to respond to every call they received. This despite the fact that the only way for anyone from the general public to see the horses/stalls was to have trespassed. The barn(s) were not open to the general public.
5. You got ticketed. A ticket is a ticket is a ticket. You either plead guilty or you don't. And if you weren't guilty as you say you weren't, why do you have so many convictions?
The tickets we received are Administrative Hearing violations. It is a place where one is automatically guilty the moment a ticket is issued. One does not go before a judge, present evidence, and get a legal ruling from the judge. Instead, one goes in, talks to an attorney from the department you are responding to, IE Animal Control or Consumer Services, and take a fine. The alternative is to spend more money to go to a trial. What's easier. Taking a $65-100 fine? Or paying an attorney big money to represent you for minor violations. You tell me.
6. So if all of the carriage companies in Chicago are in violation of the law, why are you the only ones taken down?
To this day, I still am not sure why I was targeted. While there are petty players in the Chicago carriage industry, and have done their share of sniping on other companies in the past, they were largely ignored by City government. For some reason, in 2008, someone, somewhere turned on me and convinced a group of City employees that Cutters deserved to be destroyed.
Towards the end of 2008, other companies started to receive tickets here and there for the same violations Cutters received. However, not in the same amounts that we did.
It does need to be stated that Chicago Animal Care and Control only has one person on staff that knows anything about horses. That vet's knowledge is at least 20 years out of date. He worked on a state stud farm in Europe, where horses were practically kept on silken pillows. While I have no particular animosity for this vet, I have had conversations with him that had me scratching my head. That is the only person on staff. No one else has any practical knowledge of horse care, much less what's involved in the day to day operations of a barn.
