Pet Store Owner Faces Charges at Second Outlet

The owner of the Docktor Pet Center store in Torrance, an outlet in the nation’s largest pet store franchising operation, has been charged with 27 misdemeanor counts of violating state animal care laws, including cruelty to animals.

The owner, Richard Rosenthal, 33, is facing prosecution for similar charges involving another Docktor Pet Center store in Montclair in a case filed Nov. 24. Rosenthal pleaded not guilty Wednesday to the Torrance charges, which include failure to take care of animals properly. He faces a pretrial hearing March 31.

In addition, the consumer protection division of the Los Angeles district attorney’s office is pursuing about 35 complaints that the Torrance store sold sick animals without telling the customers, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Charles Boag.

Rosenthal’s attorney, Richard Blum, accused the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, whose state-licensed investigators brought the case, of conducting a “nationwide . . . onslaught of investigations and prosecutions” against the Docktor Pet Center chain.

He said the humane society had notified news organizations about the case in order to boost fund raising and to elicit additional complaints.

The case began late last year when a complaint reached state humane officers that the store in the Del Amo Fashion Center had a dead rabbit in the display window that faces the mall walkway, according to Officer Corrinne Whetstone of the Los Angeles Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Additional complaints said the store had sold sick animals in violation of state law. A surprise inspection Dec. 24 revealed missing and inaccurate health records, sick puppies and kittens, 17 guinea pigs in a cage built for six and a dead zebra finch and a dead Senegal chameleon, according to Whetstone.

“What is especially distasteful is that this is occurring in a large shopping center” where children are exposed to the sight, Whetstone said.

Using a a search warrant, Whetstone said she found sick animals left unattended in a back room. “These animals are put in the back where they are basically forced to live or die on their own,” she said.

Whetstone said she contacted people who had recently bought pets from the store and found 35 who said they had been sold animals that were infected or diseased.

Blum countered: “Mr. Rosenthal does care for these animals. If they die, he pays for them. He is not a cruel, evil person. He has to keep these animals alive.”

Meanwhile, three civil cases against Docktor Pet Centers filed two years ago in San Mateo, Santa Clara and Alameda counties are pending. A preliminary injunction against the franchising operation that specifies it must meet certain health criteria is in effect in the Northern California cases. Rosenthal has no connection with those stores, according to his attorney.