Price Strike Hits 4,500 Meat Stores

Spurred on by the kosher meat boycott of an aroused Jewish public protesting prohibitive wholesale prices, the kosher butchers and poltry dealers of Greater New York met last night at Webster Hall, Eleventh Street and Third Avenue, in a move to join the consumers in a strike to force meat prices lower.

With at least 4,500 of the 5,000 kosher meat stores throughout the city expected to be closed today, a delegation of consumers and housewives organized under the City Action Committee against the High Cost of Living will visit the three meat packing houses in New York City, all located in the vicinity of First Avenue and Forty-second Street, this morning, to present the committee’s demands for a ten cents per pound reduction in the price of kosher meat.

IMPORT CANADIAN MEAT

Meanwhile, it was learned yesterday that high prices have made possible the invasion of the local market by kosher meat shipped across the border from Toronto. Despite a six-and-a-half- cent per pouid duty, the meat sells for about five cents per pound below the New York price, it was discovered.

Complaints that kosher butchers, caught with meat on their hands, have stored it for more than the ritual limit of seventy-two hours so that they now possess non-kosher meat, will be investigated today by George Ringler of the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets in charge of kosher meat in New York City, he told the Jewish Daily Bulletin yesterday.

A survey over the weekend showed that the consumer boycott has practically paralyzed the retailing of kosher meat. Many kosher butchers have expressed their sympathy with the boycott, declaring that they were losing nothing by closing their shops since high wholesale prices have wiped out their profits anyway.

PACKERS TARGET OF ACTION

Sponsors of the boycott emphasized that the action is in no directed against the kosher