Museum shut, but
it's keepin' lizards!
By CARRIE MELAGO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Monday, November 1st, 2004
New York Daily News -
http://www.nydailynews.com
Though authorities shut down the Long Island Reptile Museum late last week, its owner contends that allegations of deplorable conditions are a croc.
"This building is not unsafe in any way," owner Steven Kates said. "I admit it's not perfect, but my animals are."
Investigators who inspected the gecko-green museum last week found code violations ranging from fake vines draped too close to sprinklers to burned-out emergency lighting and unsafe wiring.
Oyster Bay officials allowed Kates' menagerie - including some 400 alligators, snakes and Gila monsters - to remain inside the 10-year-old Hicksville institution, but its doors will be closed to the public.
"There's no question that he has to put money into the place or, I hate to say it, cease to exist," said John Paider, an Oyster Bay town attorney who inspected the site. "He's been working on coming into compliance but he never quite makes it."
The violations - and the accompanying $140,000 in fines - are the latest setback for the beleaguered but still beloved museum, whose enormous iguana statue towers above Broadway.
Beyond being a birthday-party hot spot, the museum attracted postal officials last year when they unveiled a series of reptile-theme stamps.
Kates, a 48-year-old Syosset man who studied veterinary medicine at Cornell, is determined to reopen the shabby museum - and blames his legal problems on vengeful former employees bent on shuttering the building and removing its 400 to 500 creatures.
"She's on a mission because she's bitter," he said of one of the ex-employees, who he suspects complained to authorities last week. "She's on a methodical campaign."
Museum staff say the former workers are out to sabotage business, going so far as to tell area schools that the reptiles have E. coli and to phone in ersatz tips to TV news stations.
Still, Kates does not deny that he needs to focus more on upkeep. He will have more time to do so, now that the museum is at least temporarily closed to visitors.
On Friday, the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals began an inventory of Kates' nonvenomous snakes, caimans and alligators so they could prepare to house them if the museum closes for good.
"If something happens in the building, the animals would be in jeopardy," said Roy Gross, chief of department for the SPCA. "We want to make sure they're in a safe environment."
Sitting on the edge of a display holding three giant tortoises - Sam, Fred and Ethel, weighing a combined 450 pounds - Kates said all he wants to do is thrill children.
The museum loses at least $100,000 a year, he said, and he has had to sell all of his assets to keep it running. But Kates said every time his snakes cheer up a sick child or excite a class of students, he knows he can't do anything else.
"We aren't ready to give up and say we aren't going to do this anymore," he said.
