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Emerson Officials Consider Options After Non-Licensed Pet Shop Stays Open

EMERSON, N.J. -- Emerson officials said they were considering their options in dealing with a pet shop owner who kept his store open after his borough license expired Thursday.

At the Just Pups store in Emerson on Saturday.

At the Just Pups store in Emerson on Saturday.

Photo Credit: PHOTO: Robike Noll
At the store on Friday.

At the store on Friday.

Photo Credit: PHOTO: Robike Noll

"They do not have a license and have been issued summonses for operating without a license," Mayor Lou Lamatina told Daily Voice on Saturday, after animal rights activists complained that Vincent LoSacco's Just Pups store remained open.

Lamatina wouldn't discuss any possible responses.

"We will be addressing his continuing violation first thing next week," the mayor said, without elaborating.

Protestors continued to show up at the Kinderkamack Road shop on Friday and Saturday, as they have the past few months.

Police and borough officials also went there Friday to remind LoSacco, of Emerson, that he couldn't sell any more dogs at that location -- where an estimated 44 remained.

"An hour after they left the lights went on, and the sign was 'open'," said activist Robike Noll of Westwood. "People went in and out of the establishment all day."

A total of 134 charges of animal cruelty filed by the Bergen County SPCA are still pending against LoSacco and his brother, Leonard, for an incident at a since-closed shop in Paramus.

LoSacco surrendered his license there after Paramus police found 67 dogs crated overnight in a van outside the shop.

He already was facing 267 animal cruelty charges filed against him in March by the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals after three dead dogs were recovered from a freezer of his East Brunswick store.

LoSacco cleared out the Paramus location and moved the remaining dogs there to Emerson -- where he offered them for sale at half price -- and into the hands of a local animal rescue organization.

Emerson last month became the first town in Bergen County to ban the sale of puppy mill dogs. East Rutherford, Glen Rock and Paramus have since taken steps toward doing the same.

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