The proposed program would offer free spay/neuter and vaccinations for bodega-dwelling felines, who would be considered working animals.
Walk into a New York bodega and chances are you’ll see a cat snoozing on the cash register, chillin’ on the counter or sitting on a windowsill while watching the busy streets.
New York City’s bodega cats are beloved, viral sensations who are celebrated in Instagram feeds and coffee table books, but they exist in a legal gray area.
The law technically forbids them, but the fine for having a cat is the same as the fine for a rodent infestation. The latter increases for every violation while the former does not.
So it’s a no-brainer: adopt a cat, keep your place rat-free, maybe pay a fine. Or suffer a rodent infestation, which is not only awful, it can be stubborn and rack up thousands in fines if there’s even a whiff of a rat when inspectors make subsequent drop-ins.
No one bothers to hide bodega cats. In fact they’re more likely to use them as mascots for their shops, uploading photos of the little ones taking well-deserved breaks from rodent-hunting and encouraging regular customers to interact with them.
Since local activists pushed for legalizing the mascots/hunters, they’ve found support in the city council, a councilman willing to put a bill for vote, and a plan.
“Bodega cats embody the New York spirit: friendly, welcoming, and anti-rat,” councilman Keith Powers said. “I’m proud that my legislation will codify them into city law and provide resources to keep them healthy. It’s time to remove the legal limbo that our furry friends have been living under for far too long and legalize them once and for all.”
The city would officially recognize and register bodega cats. In return, the bodega owners get free spay/neuter and vaccinations for their cats. And instead of looking for the existence of felines in a store and issuing a fine, inspectors would check on the welfare of the furry exterminators in addition to their usual inspections.
It’s win-win, it’s already got some early support, and it would improve life for thousands of animals across the city.
“Keith Powers’ bill would allow them to come out of the shadows,” perennial mayoral candidate and local fixture Curtis Sliwa told amNY. “No longer would there be the constant fear that the NYC Department of Health would visit and issue fines and sometimes threaten bodega owners that they might remand the bodega cat to a shelter.”
New York’s city council discussed the proposed law last week. There isn’t a date set for a vote yet, but we’ll happily follow up when we learn more.
“Harm or death to an animal caused by another animal is not a criminal matter,” even when footage shows dog owners urging their pets to attack, the NYPD claims.
The NYPD says its hands are tied after a group of people sent their pit bulls after a well-known shop cat in Manhattan and cheered as they dogs brutally ended the tabby’s life.
Freddy was the resident moggie at Michelle Flowers, a florist on Amsterdam Avenue in Washington Heights. The little guy was outside the shop at about 9 p.m. on July 4 when a man and two women set their dogs loose on him, then celebrated and cheered as they killed him.
Credit: Cat Collective
The pit bull owners then “smoked, danced and ate food while taking photos and mimicking the grisly scene,” according to the New York Post. Surveillance cameras caught the attack and its aftermath, showing the three black-clad dog owners and others who witnessed the violence and did nothing.
A disgusted neighbor contacted the Cat Collective, a group of volunteers who feed and care for strays in the neighborhood, and they collected Freddy’s remains, then told the florist’s owner what happened.
“Someone deliberately set dogs on a defenseless cat while people watched and cheered,” Dan Rimada of Bodega Cats of New York told the Post.
Cat Collective is offering cash rewards to anyone who can identify the dog owners and the celebrating bystanders, but the police won’t do anything.
An NYPD spokesman told the paper that “harm or death to an animal caused by another animal is not a criminal matter,” citing a gap in the law.
A proposed bill, dubbed Penny’s law after a chihuahua that was mauled by pit bulls earlier this year in Manhattan, hasn’t made it out of committee in the New York State legislature, while New York’s city council is looking at a municipal law that would make it a crime to set dogs on other animals.
Credit: Cat Collective
It’s actually difficult to believe nothing can be done to get justice for Freddy, Penny and other animals aside from civil cases, which can only result in monetary damages.
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, who is controversial to say the least for creatively interpreting the law, seems like just the kind of district attorney who could find a way to prosecute the dog owners. The fact that the authorities are outright dismissing the possibility indicates Bragg doesn’t see this as a priority.
Working with the police to find ways to get justice is Bragg’s job, as well as the job of the attorneys working for him in the district attorney’s office. At the very least, they should be able to find something with which to charge the suspects, even if it really turns out there’s no way to hold them criminally accountable for Freddy’s death.
We hope Freddy’s killers are identified and held responsible, and we hope no more pets and strays have to be killed before lawmakers at the city and state level make it a priority to close an obvious gap in the law.
Bodega cats are the stars of a popular online series and could soon become legal in New York, where they’ve helped keep delis and small groceries rodent-free for as long as such places have existed.
Although it’s way too early to celebrate, Pennsylvania could become the fourth state to outlaw cruel declawing procedures after two lawmakers there introduced a new bill.
The Pennsylvania declawing ban proposal closely mirrors laws already passed in New York, Maryland and Massachusetts, and would outlaw the procedure except in cases where it’s medically necessary. (Although extremely rare, sometimes cats suffer from cancer of the nail bed and other maladies that necessitate surgery, but that’s a far cry from the elective declawing currently legal in 47 states.)
The state’s Veterinary Medical Association, the usual villain in these situations, is opposed to the ban. State veterinary medical associations argue that outlawing the procedure — which amputates a cat’s toes up to the first knuckle — would limit options for veterinarians and caretakers.
The veterinary medical associations, which contrary to their names do not represent all or even most veterinarians, also claim that declaw bans lead to more surrenders, but that claim has been repeatedly debunked by statistics from states and municipalities where bans have passed. In each of those cases, surrenders actually decreased, which is not a surprise to those who understand declawing, rather than “solving” any behavioral issues, actually causes cats to lash out even more because of the suffering they endure from the mutilation.
Here in New York, the Veterinary Medical Association successfully prevented declawing bans from making it out of committee for years, despite organizations like the Humane Society, SPCA, Alley Cat Allies and others wholeheartedly opposing elective declawing. Each state VMA buys influence with campaign donations, and relies on the lawmakers they support to kill declawing bans. Let’s hope Pennsylvania’s Veterinary Medical Association proves less adept at derailing that state’s bill.
The Last Cat of the Skies: The Iconic F-14 Tomcat
When I was a kid, the two Dream Machines that adorned posters on my wall were the Lamborghini Countach and the F-14 Tomcat. The Countach remains a car without equal with its inimitable, angular design that still manages to look futuristic more than half a century since the first models rolled out of the factory.
The twin-engine Tomcat is kind of like the Countach of fighter jets with its variable wing geometry, prominently angular air intakes and unique silhouette that makes it easy to distinguish even from the ground.
A Tomcat from the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) during a combat flight over the Persian Gulf in 2005. Credit: U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Rob Tabor
Grumman’s air superiority fighter was immortalized in pop culture when Tom Cruise’s ace fighter pilot, Maverick, flew the aircraft in 1986’s Top Gun, and the Tomcat enjoyed a nostalgic encore in 2022’s excellent Top Gun: Maverick, displaying its staying power in a film that also heavily featured newer aircraft like the F-18 Super Hornet and the sixth generation prototype “Darkstar,” based on Lockheed Martin’s secretive SR-72.
The F-14 is the last of Grumman’s “cat” aircraft, after the Wildcat and Hellcat, and while it no longer fills a role in the US military, it remains a potent weapon for other countries half a century since its first flight. You can read all about the Tomcat in The Aviationist’s new feature here.
The Tomcat’s variable wings were a technological marvel when the aircraft was first released. The wings are swept forward for takeoff and landing, and typically swept backward during high speed, high altitude flight, allowing the fighter to maneuver in ways other aircraft could not. The wings can also shift to an asymmetrical configuration, allowing for unique capabilities in flight.
New York’s deli cats get their say
Bodega cats, longtime fixtures of New York’s answer to grocery stores, are enjoying a moment thanks to a major push to finally legalize their presence, and popular social media accounts featuring photographs of the beloved mousers keeping watch over their stores and snoozing in snack aisles.
A bodega cat in New York takes a siesta from his usual napping, eating and rodent-hunting duties. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Now the New York Times has a feature on the popular TikTok series Shop Cats, which features “interviews” with the neighborhood felines.
Like Buddy, they seem to have an odd fascination with Mao Zedong, and their answers don’t make much sense, but that’s part of their charm. Check it out here.
The store’s owner says he’s not interested in having anyone prosecuted and he just wants his cat back.
Another day, another person who decided to steal a cat instead of adopting one of the estimated 3.2 million languishing in shelters and waiting for homes.
This time, a man made off with Antonio, a well-loved bodega cat who was the unofficial mascot of K’Glen Deli and Sari Sari Store in Woodside, Queens. When store owner Glen Alagasi couldn’t find Antonio and the tabby failed to show up for meal time, Alagasi panicked.
Sure enough, footage from security cameras showed a man picking Antonio up right in front of the store’s entrance and walking away earlier that day, on the afternoon of Aug. 2. As the man walked off, Antonio managed to squirm out of his hands and was trying to get back to the bodega. The man scooped him up again and Antonio was last seen in his arms as they headed toward Woodside Avenue.
Credit: Glen Alagasi
Like others who have had their feline friends taken from them, Alagasi said he’s much more interested in getting his cat back than any form of retribution or punishment.
“We’re not asking for any criminal prosecution,” Alagasi told CBS New York. “Just, we need the cat back. [The thief] stole a precious thing here in this community.”
For people unfamiliar with city living, especially in New York, bodegas are a daily part of life and often the only places to buy food in neighborhoods that are otherwise “grocery deserts.” When you live in Manhattan or a borough, the concept of big-time grocery shopping just doesn’t exist, because chances are you’re hauling your purchases back on foot and ascending stairs or an elevator to your apartment.
Technically, the Department of Health forbids the keeping of cats in bodegas and delis, which almost always have hot food and sandwiches prepared on-site. But the fine for a rat infestation is the same as it is for having a cat, and inspectors can’t be everywhere, so most bodega owners figure it’s better to have a little pal who keeps the rats away than cede territory to rodents, especially in a city that struggles with a perpetual rat problem.
The laws are so openly flouted that there are entire social media accounts dedicated to bodega cats, and the operators don’t bother to hide their cats from customers or the press. If the inspectors are going to come, they’ll come.
Alagasi says he’s lost a friend, and customers like Pia Tracy are used to seeing the little guy every day.
Antonio, who often plays with Tracy’s cat, is “part of our everyday life.”
Tracy says she’s “devastated and heartbroken because I don’t know if he’s okay. We just hope he’s okay.”
A rare prequel that matches or exceeds the original, Day One explores relationships feline and human in a harrowing, life-or-death situation. With its Manhattan setting and post-apocalyptic vibe, the film also invites comparisons to the chaos and insanity of 9/11, when shocked survivors were just beginning to grapple with what they’d experienced.
If there’s one thing director Michael Sarnoski knows about cat people, it’s that putting a feline in danger is a reliably manipulative way to ratchet up tension.
Frodo the cat, therapy pet to Lupita Nyong’o’s Sam in A Quiet Place: Day One, is every bit the handsome co-star.
In a story about a woman and her cat trying to survive an apocalyptic event in New York City, the cat gets plenty of screen time. There are entire sequences following the little guy as he dashes away from danger (and sometimes toward it) and as he follows his feline instincts, which might not be the right instincts in a world that suddenly has its rules rewritten.
Nyong’o’s Sam, right, introduces Frodo to a young admirer in a Manhattan theater during the early minutes of A Quiet Place: Day One. Credit: Paramount
A Quiet Place: Day One is the third installment of the Quiet Place films. The first one thrilled audiences with a tight script, tense acting and a quiet/loud dynamic that made the absence of sound more sinister than sound itself.
A Quiet Place (2018) and its sequel (2020) take place about 16 months after the arrival of monstrous creatures of indeterminate origin. The aliens are blind, but that doesn’t impede their ability to rampage through human cities. They have an unearthly sensitivity to sound and can echolocate. Even a whisper can be enough to draw their attention if they’re in relatively close proximity.
We meet the Abbott family (John Krasinski, Emily Blunt and their children) some 16 months after the initial invasion, when they’re living silently on their isolated farm in upstate New York.
The audience is told nothing about where the creatures came from or what they are, and except for a short sequence in the very beginning of the sequel, we don’t see their arrival. The first two films deal exclusively with the aftermath, with scattered survivors trying to eke out an existence.
A curious Frodo watches Quinn’s character, Eric, emerge gasping from a flooded subway station. Credit: Paramount
Day One is a different beast entirely, both from a plot perspective and through the lens of Sarnoski, who leaves his fingerprints all over the franchise and imbues the prequel with a surprisingly poignant relationship between Nyong’o’s Sam and Joseph Quinn’s Eric, a young British student who moved to New York for law school. (If you’re a fan of Stranger Things, you’ll know Quinn as Eddie Munson, the D&D-playing metalhead and stand-out character from the show’s fourth season. He also had a brief appearance in the seventh season of Game of Thrones, and will appear in the upcoming sequel to Ridley Scott’s Gladiator.)
Sam and Eric are strangers thrown together by circumstance and quickly grow close. Eric, overwhelmed by the world being turned upside down in a country he’s not yet accustomed to, needs someone to latch onto. Sam, who has isolated herself as she wastes away from cancer, finds the companionship she didn’t know she needed.
While tens of thousands of New Yorkers heed the US military’s call to head to South Street Seaport for evacuation via boats, as the Death Angels apparently cannot swim, Sam is determined to reach Patsy’s pizzeria in Harlem, where she believes the world’s last slice of their beloved thin-crust pizza awaits. Unlike the other survivors, she doesn’t have the possibility of a future if she makes it to safety.
Walking from Chinatown in lower Manhattan to Patsy’s in Harlem is a hike, about nine miles as the crow flies. It would take most people the better part of three hours to walk under normal circumstances. In an invasion, when the slightest sound can mean death, it’s an extraordinarily dangerous and long journey.
Still, being determined to get the very last slice of pizza in an apocalypse is precisely the sort of ridiculous thing I’d do, so I sympathize with Sam.
In an amusing scene early in the film, a man in a bodega tells Nyong’o’s Sam she can’t have a cat in the store — while his own shop cat lounges on the counter next to him. Bonus point for the Knicks hat. Credit: Paramount
As for Frodo, he’s one cute little dude! I appreciate the fact that Michael Sarnoski elected to have an adult cat rather than a kitten, not because I have anything against kittens, but because Frodo is a reminder that felines of all ages are beautiful, and there are plenty of Frodos in shelters.
Nico and Schnitzel, the cats who play Frodo, are great animal actors. In one scene Frodo sees Quinn emerge from a flooded subway and stops, curiosity playing across his little face. He looks at the stranger and his mouth opens ever so slightly, as if in shock. How many takes did Sarnoski need to get that?
Nico and Schnitzel split duties as Frodo. Credit: Paramount
Frodo is also a survivor. His hunting instincts kick in when he sees a rat, drawing him closer to danger, and at one point curiosity beckons him toward the ruined shell of a building where the Death Angels are apparently nesting.
Incredibly, he never meows. There are times when he freaks out and runs, as cats are known to do, but he reliably finds his way back to Sam, and he has a knack for remaining absolutely still and silent when he needs to be.
There were so many moments when I imagined myself in Sam’s shoes and Buddy in Frodo’s paws, and we’d have been dead in all of them. As I noted in my post about the “Quiet Place Challenge” trend on social media, the Budster and I would have a life expectancy of approximately 60 seconds in the film’s world. Death by Buddy would be my fate, as inescapable as his mealtime screeching.
There is also a visceral 9-11 feel to the opening sequences of the invasion, and any New Yorker old enough to remember that day will be reminded of it. It’s impossible not to with the scenes of ash-covered survivors huddled inside buildings, crowds of dead-eyed people walking away from disaster and the eerie sight of a sooty Manhattan bereft of its usual bustle and life.
There are of course plot holes in Day One, or at least unanswered questions to things that don’t seem to make sense. When the military’s helicopters sweep over Manhattan, announcing via loudspeakers that survivors should head to the ports because “the enemy cannot swim,” I wondered: did these aliens just land in Manhattan? If so, why? Surely they don’t recognize the arbitrary municipal boundaries of humanity, and the whole area is one seemingly endless metropolis.
Quinn, left, and Nyong’o, right, panic as a Death Angel crashes down from above, listening for its prey. Credit: Paramount
The Death Angels are obviously sentient, but whether they’re sapient is another matter. They don’t seem to have much in the way of a sense of self-preservation, and there is no method to their madness. During the aforementioned helicopter scene, the characters watch as hundreds of Death Angels race toward lower Manhattan, drawn by the sound of the choppers and the loudspeaker. It’s impossible not to think it would be trivial to draw the lot of them with the loudest possible sound, then drop a few daisy cutters on them and call it a day.
Of course if any of that happened there would be no movie and no drama, so as with most stories like this, it’s best to let the film pull you along without stopping to over-analyze what you’re seeing.
If you’ve watched the first two films, you also know the reasons for the invasion are nebulous. The Death Angels don’t eat their kills, as Krasinski’s Lee Abbott learned, and if they’re the vanguard of a more intelligent species, doing all the dirty work before the masters arrive, well, we’ve yet to see who’s pulling the strings.
Overall, like horror master Mike Flanagan taking on a sequel to the tepid Ouiji earlier in his career, Sarnoski doesn’t view the fact that Day One is a prequel as an excuse to phone in a performance. He approaches the film with enthusiasm and energy as if it’s one of his own creations, and that’s evident in every frame. It’s a Sarnoski movie that happens to be a genre film, not the other way round.
There’s a surprising poignancy to Day One that makes it more than the sum of its parts. We’re not here to spoil anything, but if you’re a cat lover, we will say that Day One doesn’t pull an I Am Legend. You can watch the film with reassurance that Sarnoski has better tricks up his sleeve for stirring your emotions than gratuitous animal-involved violence.
It’s rare when a sequel or a prequel reaches the same heights as the original. How many of us wish franchises like Alien and The Matrix stopped at one film? Thankfully that’s not the case here. There’s life in A Quiet Place yet, and like the best science fiction, it’s a film that uses extraordinary circumstances to tell a very human story.
Perhaps the best part is the experience has made a cat lover of Nyong’o. In a short promo (below), she explains that she’s always been afraid of cats, viewing them as miniature lions.
“Now,” she says with a laugh, “somehow, I love them!”
She’s not just saying that either. After filming Day One, she adopted her own cat, Yoyo, and it takes just a glance at her Instagram page, which is festooned with photos of the orange tabby, to know that she really does love the little guy.
Pain In The Bud 