Meat Boycott Closes 3,500 Kosher Shops

With the consumer-retailer boycott against kosher meat packers spreading throughout the city, a delegation of the City Action Committee against the High Cost of Living will meet with representatives of the Institute of American Meat Packers this afternoon at the office of Commissioner William Fellowes Morgan, Jr., of the Department of Public Markets, Weights and Measures, in an attempt to reach an agreement.

The Action Committee estimated yesterday that about 3,500 kosher butchers had closed their shops in sympathy with the housewives’ efforts to force a ten-cent per pound reduction in the price of meat.

It was learned that executives of the Federation of Kosher Butchers held a secret conference yesterday to consider a course of action. The executives, have been closeted in conferences ever since the rank-and-file butchers voted last Sunday night at Webster Hall to strike in sympathy with the consumers.

SHOPS PICKETED

A number of butcher shops, notably in Manhattan where the boycott is the weakest, were still being picketed by women adherents of the boycott movement.

Charges that certain kosher butchers had stored meat for more than the ritual limit of seventy-two hours were discounted yesterday by George Ringler of the State Department of Agriculture and Markets. He said that on returning from Albany where he conferred with the department officials, he investigated the complaints and found them baseless.

Rebuffed Monday in presenting demands for a price-cut to meat packers, a committee of three representing the action committee interviewed Commissioner Morgan at his office yesterday. He expressed a desire to be helpful and arranged this afternoon’s meeting.

Mr. Morgan was non-committal about charges that the meat packers are keeping wholesale prices high to increase their profits. He said he had not investigated the accusations as yet.