Horse slaughter debate heats up

DeKALB -- Seventeen months after it was destroyed by fire, a controversial horse-slaughtering plant on the south end of the city should be rebuilt and operating again by December, a plant official said Tuesday. Cavel International had already received a permit from the city in December 2001 to renovate the plant at 108 Harvestore Drive. The permit came after a handful of lengthy hearings before the plan commission and city council in which animal rights activists and residents voiced opposition to the company's plans. Cavel sells horse meat for human consumption to customers in Europe and had been operating in DeKalb for 15 years when a fire, the cause of which remains undetermined, destroyed it on March 31, 2002. When rebuilt, the DeKalb p