Root of legal battle is requirement for a grease trap at Alpine’s Hip-O
ALPINE — Hip-O Taxidermy — a fixture where Big Bend hunters had trophies mounted and meat processed for more than 15 years — is soon closing its doors after the City of Alpine cited the business for refusing to install a grease trap, according to accounts from several city officials and the business owner.
Howard Parsons, who runs Hip-O with his wife, April, posted to Facebook last week notifying hunters they’d need to look elsewhere for services as mule deer season approaches. “Due to the actions taken by the City of Alpine restricting our ability to operate our business, we will be closing shop,” the owners posted. Many Facebook users commented that it could significantly impact hunters, because there are no other nearby options for processing game — Fort Stockton being the closest. Parsons told The Big Bend Sentinel he will likely close for good in early December after they finish final mounting projects already underway.
The conflict is more complicated than objections over a grease trap that costs a few hundred dollars, and it is the second recent dust up with a taxidermy business that has left Alpine residents wondering if their city has grown up to be a professional bureaucracy looking out for its infrastructure or if it’s too aggressive in enforcement of its rules.
Robert Rückes, the head of Alpine Building Services for the city, resigned on November 6 after a conflict he had with the city’s top management over a zoning ordinance. He told The Sentinel he felt that the city actually wasn’t doing enough to follow rules of good governance and that with so much conflict in the ranks of employees, he didn’t “feel he could make positive change.” The city will now be looking for its ninth head of Building Services in less than a decade.
In interviews with Rückes and three former city employees who worked on the taxidermy issue, they outlined what they said happened. Early this year, two city inspectors went to Hip-O and had an informal conversation with owner Howard Parsons. When they asked Parsons if he had a grease trap and commercial dumpsters — which they said was required by city code — he said he did. Two code compliance inspectors then returned later and said it was clear to them he did not have a grease trap or the proper dumpster service.
Some supporters of Parsons posted on Facebook that it was on that return trip that a code inspector and the city’s environmental officer illegally went through a gate to inspect the dumpsters. Rückes said he doesn’t know the details of that claim, but said he was told the inspectors had the authority to be where they were.
The city then began sending letters to Hip-O and eventually issued a citation for no grease trap and improper dumpsters. The Sentinel has requested those documents, but they were not available by press time. (Rückes said the dumpster complaint was resolved and the citation dropped.) Howard Parsons said that on the advice of his attorney, he would only comment on limited details involved in this story.
Alpine Municipal Court records show the Parsonses were on the docket for a hearing on the citations twice, and Alpine City Secretary Geo Calderon said they have indicated they intend to fight the charges with a jury trial in municipal court, likely in January. The Sentinel has requested court records, which were unavailable by press time.
Rückes said he and another city employee initially went to Hip-O as a courtesy to make sure they were compliant with all codes, because another taxidermy business in the city had faced issues for no grease trap. However, another city code compliance officer — Catherine Reese, who left the city in June — said a neighbor to the business had complained of the smell coming from the dumpsters.
Rückes said that after the city sent letters to the Parsonses, there was a tense meeting on the issue. “I told him it was pretty clear he’s going to have to come up to compliance with the grease trap and the dumpsters. And he said, ‘I’m not doing anything. I don’t think I need to.’”
Grease traps are required by city ordinance for any business that cooks or processes foods to keep grease from clumping in the wastewater lines and blocking them. Cassandra Woosley, who formerly worked for Alpine’s water utility and left this summer, said lack of traps or nonfunctioning or unmaintained traps are a serious problem for the city’s wastewater service. “I can’t tell you how many times the water department has to jet the sewers, and we were constantly jetting out big clumps of grease,” Woosley said.
Rückes said that he told Parsons that if cost was in issue, he found grant programs through the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and that he knew a plumber in town that likely would do the installation for trade, since the plumber was a hunter. Rückes said Parsons replied, “If y’all force me to put in a grease trap, then I’m just going to shut down the processing portion of my business and let everybody know why I had to shut down.”
Rückes, who said he is an avid hunter, said he then explained to Parsons why a trap was needed. “I said, ‘You’re processing meat, which has fats and runoff, such as blood and what not, and all that has to be caught. It’s a city ordinance because it’s also a state law, per TCEQ.’”
Since Parsons only had a small sink, it didn’t appear that the installation of a trap would cost more than a few hundred dollars, Rückes said. Businesses are also required to provide the city with receipts for maintaining the traps every three months, he said.
Reese said she felt the city staff were doing everything they could to try and help Hip-O move forward. “He [Parsons] came to our office, and he wasn’t happy with what he was hearing,” she said. “It was a simple solution that he just didn’t want to do.”
“I did the same process with the American Legion, who also threw a fit and told me we can’t believe you’re doing this,” Reese added. “I told them I’m a veteran. I stand for exactly what you guys are here to support. I have to be fair across the board.”
Is a grease trap really needed?
Parsons confirmed to The Sentinel that he didn’t have city water and used a well and had a septic system instead of city wastewater, which seemed to counter the concerns city officials had about grease getting in their lines. The business is located on the eastern edge of the city limits on Highway 90.
However, Rückes said that when septic tanks are pumped, the water and solids are taken to the city treatment plant. So, any grease collected from the tanks will end up in the water treatment system, which is in continual need of maintenance and repair. “You can go over there and see all the greases and fats floating around inside the wastewater treatment facility, and it clogs up pumps and screens and all kinds of stuff,” Rückes said. When grease traps are cleaned, they are taken to a “grease pit” at the city landfill. Companies hauling grease and septic waste pay the city fees to dump at the city facilities, he said.
Parsons said he had never had the septic tank pumped. It’s unclear if that meant since he bought the business in the summer of 2021 or in the 15 years the business has been running.
The Alpine code is simple and says that if you discharge grease or oil as a business — without quantifying how much — you need a trap. TCEQ lists taxidermists under its charge of regulatory authority and lists related regulation areas, including grease traps and waste disposals, but officials did not immediately return a request for comment on what exactly is required.
Zoning case closes a separate business
Noe Lujan ran a small taxidermy business — Desert Trophies — out of a shop next to a home in southeast Alpine on Avenue H. City officials said that unlike Hip-O, he didn’t process any meat and only did European mounts, just receiving the heads to clean for a mounted skull and antlers.
Reese said the city received a complaint near the beginning of this year about a bad smell coming from Lujan’s dumpster, and when the city inspectors arrived to check it out, they realized he was running a small taxidermy shop and that a boy was hosing animal matter off of some pavement. (Lujan denies this ever occurred and said most of his work involved a bucket of soapy water.) The city confiscated the dumpster, Reese said, but no animal parts were found in it.
City officials told Lujan he would need a small grease trap, but in the end, the grease trap didn’t matter, because the city discovered he was operating the business out of a property zoned residential. The news came as a surprise to Lujan, who had seen several businesses operate there throughout the years, and his mother-in-law, who owned the property, and family always thought it was zoned commercial.
Lujan was right, sort of. City Secretary Geo Calderon said that in 1994 the property was zoned from residential to commercial, but it was done at City Council by a resolution, not the legal way as it should have with an ordinance. “They had a legitimate issue,” Calderon said. However, an attorney for the city said the residential designation had to be left in place.
Lujan and his wife, Crystal, submitted an application to change the zoning to commercial this spring. The application was denied by the Planning and Zoning Commission on April 22 and then the City Council on May 7. Calderon said the problem with their strategy was that since the property was in the heart of a neighborhood, it constitutes “spot zoning,” a new zoning classification being given to a property that is incompatible with adjacent lots, which is illegal in Texas, with a few exceptions under law.
Rückes, who arrived at the city just as the case was going to Planning and Zoning, said he felt bad for Lujan, because it wasn’t his fault for not knowing the commercial zoning was invalid. “I’ve personally had him taxidermy some of my stuff … He does a great job,” Rückes said.
Woosley, formerly with the water utility, followed that case and initially thought the city might “turn a blind eye” because the business was so harmless and she believed Lujan was close to city officials. But she said she eventually realized that wasn’t going to happen and the business would be shut down.
“It is a huge health and safety issue,” Reese, the former code inspector, said. “He was throwing the carcasses into the trash receptacles. We did not cite him for any of that. We just gave him the warning notices. And he didn’t deny anything with the taxidermy. I just explained to him that you can’t do this here.”
Rückes said there still may be a way to address the zoning issue, but city officials said it’s unlikely, because they don’t believe you should be dealing with any kind of animal work that creates waste, no matter how little, in a neighborhood.Calderon said he thinks what triggered city staff to inquire about Hip-O was that code inspectors had just dealt with a grease trap issue with Lujan and decided to do the “courtesy call” Rückes described to Parsons. The Sentinel previously reported on city inspectors taking a more proactive approach to ensuring commercial businesses are following all codes.