Former 7UP bottling co employee Larry Ottaviani
SACRAMENTO, CA - Animal lovers are upset while health officials praise a 7UP Bottling Company after an employee was fired for feeding stray cats.
"We are a beverage production facility and governed by the food and drug administration. The FDA states that we must ensure our grounds are protected against contamination. Feeding feral cats only undermines our ability to do that. He chose to ignore numerous warnings and put us in violation of FDA laws," Company spokesperson Jason Genthner said,
Larry Ottaviani was fired in early January but still drives from his home in Rocklin to the 7UP bottling facility in north Sacramento every night to feed the feral cats. "I used to do it when most of the management is gone," Ottaviani said.
7UP management said that Ottaviani started a huge problem a few years ago by feeding stray cats on property and, in turn, luring in dozens more. His goal was to trap them to have them spayed or neutered.
Ottaviani claims that when the economy took a turn, so did many non-profits, and there became fewer places offering to pay to spay and neuter the cats. Ottaviani said he became ill and couldn't afford to pay for the vet bills himself. But, he had already conditioned the cats to depend on him for food and water. He stopped trapping them - but kept giving them food. More and more cats came around. There are now more than eight colonies of about 10 cats each surrounding the 7UP property.
Ottaviani admits to receiving several warnings to stop feeding the cats on property, but ignored the threats. He knowingly put himself at risk of losing his job.
"I continued to try and sneak food out to them because I couldn't trap them anymore. They didn't give me permission. I asked and they said no. So, I was sneaking food to them on occasion and that's when I got caught and was terminated," Ottaviani said.
Not everyone believes Ottaviani should have been fired. Bloggers have started a petition to have his job reinstated and 7UP's Facebook page is filled with hundreds of angry messages.
Ottaviani isn't angry with 7UP and understands their position. But he says he can't sleep at night knowing the cats are waiting for him to feed them. He doesn't know how to fix the problem he started.
"It is what it is. I could do this as long as I can have a better solution. It's just that there's a lot of homeless animals," said Ottaviani.
Several traps are placed on 7UP's property, but Ottaviani has been using a long thin steel pole to stick through the property fence and open the traps to free any cats being caught.
"I don't believe they have a good plan," said Ottaviani. He doesn't trust 7UP to do what, in his opinion, needs to be done with the cats. "Trapping, spaying and neutering, then re-releasing them is a long process. I don't think they're going to do that to them. So, I check the traps, every night and let the cats go free. I love watching them be free."
"Doesn't he know that we plan to take them to a wildlife refuge and set them free? I don't know what we're going to do about this," 7UP spokesperson Jason Genthner said.
Ottaviani said he will continue to feed and free the cats until he finds funding to have them all trapped, spayed and neutered. He believes that it's not good enough to relocate the cats because they may starve to death since he made them dependant on him for food. Ottaviani also thinks there's a risk of starting even larger colonies of cats if they're moved to a new location without supervision.
He's receiving unemployment and now spending much of it to feed canned wet food to the feral cats.
By Natalie Sentz, nsentz@news10.net
News10/KXTV