Circus thumbs its nose at Lake County
February 17th, 2010 by admin
Early last week, an ARFF member spotted a poster advertising performances of the Liebling Brothers Circus, February 12-14, in Sorrento, a town in Lake County. Liebling Brothers travels with a female African elephant named Nosey, two monkeys and several ponies. Knowing this circus’ horrible history of poor animal care, ARFF contacted Lake County to make sure- at the very least- that the circus had paid the required business tax and obtained the required permissions to set up its circus tent in the county. ARFF spoke to the tax collector, the zoning division and to code enforcement and learned that the circus had not contacted the county concerning the scheduled performances. A code enforcement officer went to Sorrento on Friday night and issued a notice of violation, but apparently the officer did not have the authority to stop the circus. ARFF has sent a letter to the Lake County Commission urging them to put teeth into their regulation of circuses. A circus should not be able to set up a large tent and sell tickets to the public, in violation of county regulations, without consequences. The circus itself was depressing. During the elephant act, Nosey crawls on her knees, and one of the monkeys is led around the ring by a chain while audience members throw cotton candy at him. Click here and here to watch video from last weekend’s show.
But it was not all bad news in Lake County. In March 2009, when the Liebling Brothers Circus appeared at the North Lake Flea Market in Fruitland Park, a spider monkey escaped from his cage before a performance. Reggie the monkey ran free in the wilds of Lake County for a month before being recaptured. ARFF recently contacted the flea market and learned that they have decided not to have the circus back in 2010! On Monday, an Orlando Sentinel blog wrote about the decision.
Click here to learn more about Nosey and other solitary performing elephants in Florida.