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This sloth shutdown was sloooooooow moving.
After 18 months, Long Island officials finally put an exotic animal store — and its seven sloths — out of business.
Larry Wallach charged $50 a pop for 30-minute sessions where customers could pet, feed, and hang out with the South American creatures and other exotic animals at his petting zoo, Sloth Encounters, in Hauppauge.
He removed the store’s sign and sloths last week after he was threatened with contempt of court for continuing to operate. Local authorities had been trying to shutter the facility, once a pool supply store, since its June 2022 opening.
While state law doesn’t prohibit owning a sloth, the Town of Islip — where Sloth Encounters set up shop — does bar the ownership of “wild animals,” unless they’re in a zoo, a lab, a licensed educational facility, or “a carnival, circus or public outdoor show” which requires a special permit Wallach didn’t have.
Wallach, 66, is an animal exhibitor licensed by the USDA who one critic labeled “Long Island’s Joe Exotic.” Earlier this year, he was linked to allegations of bear cub trafficking when a man in Florida caught with two Kodiak cubs claimed he was training the animals for Wallach, who has not been charged in that case.
“Larry is just a ‘Tiger King’ extra who didn’t make the cut,” quipped John Di Leonardo, an anthrozoologist who heads Humane Long Island.
Sloth Encounters used cuddly, cartoonish images of sloths to bring in customers and advertised itself as “an educational journey,” but life inside was actually hellish for the nocturnal sloths, who are famously slow moving, have razor sharp teeth and claws, and prefer not to be touched, according to court papers and an investigation by the Humane Society.
As part of their probe, Humane Society investigators caught one employee on video smacking a sloth with a water bottle, while Wallach was recorded grabbing the animals by the back of the neck as their arms flailed in distress, according to the footage and a USDA inspection report.
The sloths, along with a kangaroo, capybaras, and other animals, were kept in crowded, unsanitary conditions, the Humane Society alleged.
When another customer reported being bitten by a sloth in August 2022, Wallach allegedly lied to USDA investigators, the agency said in an inspection report.
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When another customer reported being bitten by a sloth in August 2022, Wallach allegedly lied to USDA investigators, the agency said in an inspection report.
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In February an inspection revealed one kangaroo, one cockatoo, two capybaras, three degus, three chinchillas, seven sugar gliders (a type of possum), and 10 lovebirds, along with the sloths, inside the store.
It’s unclear where Wallach took the animals after the store’s closing, first reported by Newsday.
“As long as he removes them from the town and complies with the code that’s all the jurisdiction we have,” lawyer William Wexler, who is representing the town in the case, told The Post.
Wallach has racked up nearly 40 USDA inspection reports since July 2022 and has had several run-ins with authorities and animal welfare groups over the years.