St. Hubert's Headed for PetSmart Store After Charity Ends Contract With Eleventh Hour

The cat’s out of the bag.

PetSmart Charities, which oversees the Everyday Adoption Center at the Mt. Olive PetSmart store location and recently gave Eleventh Hour Rescue 30 days to vacate the premises, will be bringing in another Morris County-based animal rescue agency this fall.

Earlier this year, PetSmart Charities reached out to St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center, headquartered in Madison, New Jersey, about occupying the Everyday Adoption Center (EAC) at the Mt. Olive PetSmart location.

Despite a confidentiality agreement, St. Hubert’s released a statement Thursday morning, outlining the partnership and how a change at the Mt. Olive EAC came to be.

“We are still under a confidentiality agreement under a master agreement with PetSmart Charities that governs the transport program, grants and the Everyday Adoption Center. We believe in transparency and reached out to PetSmart Charities to ask for permission to share this statement.

The opportunity presented to us was to occupy the Everyday Adoption Center at the Mount Olive PetSmart store. We were not made privy to details related to the change in tenancy. The main discussion point with us was that PetSmart Charities seeks tie-ins of these centers to its transport program, Rescue Waggin’, and that St. Hubert’s is the only nearby partner already actively participating in that program as a receiving organization. In fact, we were asked to agree to the stipulation that Rescue Waggin® transports will have right of first refusal should there be more opportunities for homeless animals to be placed through that venue.”

Since 2011 St. Hubert’s has been working on occupying the Noah’s Ark building near the Mt. Olive PetSmart location, the organization’s director, Heather Cammisa, told Patch.

“When we were approached about the opportunity we felt it was a great fit with Noah’s Ark nearby and our already established partnership with PetSmart Charities,” Camissa said. “We told [PetSmart Charities] we’d be happy to accommodate [Eleventh Hour Rescue] with any time or assistance they would need during the transition. We made it known that we would be very flexible.”

Cammisa said she, and other members of St. Hubert’s, was unaware of the sudden and abrupt end to the contract between Eleventh Hour Rescue and PetSmart Charities until the issue was made public this week.

St. Hubert’s statement went on to say:

We were not made aware the circumstances related to the notification or reasoning with the current tenants of the store. We expressed concern about upcoming transfers the current tenants might have and we specifically requested that when notification occurred, that it be made known to them that we wanted to help. We are all in this cause together and we stand by that offer of assistance. While we are not in control of the timing, we are completely flexible regarding dates.

Eleventh Hour Rescue, which has occupied the EAC in Mt. Olive for four years, was given a letter on Aug. 25 by PetSmart Charities stating it had until Sept. 25 to vacate the premises and the contract between the two organizations was coming to an end.

“We value loyalty, we value partnerships,” said longtime EHR volunteer Roger Keyser. “This isn’t the way you treat partners.”

PetSmart Charities Media Relations Manager Steve Pawlowski told Patch that the contract between the two has expired, and the business has “elected not to renew the agreement.”

The reason, Pawlowski said, was the Everyday Adoption Center will be closing for remodeling. Pawlowski did not respond when asked what the remodeled space will be used for, or why EHR was only given 30 days to vacate the premises, despite asking for more time.

“They just won’t tell us why this is happening,” Keyser said. “We’ve never had any issues or been in trouble for anything. They just won’t give us a reason.”

Once the announcement went public, a petition through Change.org – which can be seen here – under the name of Boycott Petsmart and Petsmart Charities, has garnered nearly 5,000 digital signatures, up more than 2,000 since Wednesday afternoon.

Pawlowski did not respond to phone and email messages from Patch.

St. Hubert’s still expects to occupy the EAC this fall, Cammisa said.

Photo Courtesy Eleventh Hour Rescue.