PETA Aborts Plan To Buy Jeffrey Dahmer's Childhood Home

A national animal rights organization has announced that it will drop plans to turn serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer’s former childhood home in the Cleveland area into a vegan restaurant, citing zoning issues, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.

photo credit: Nomadic Lass via photopin cc

People for Ethical Treatment of Animals had been in contact with the listing agent for the home about submitting an offer on the 2,000-square-foot home with plans to transform it into a restaurant. “[It’s a way to] respond to the past with something positive,” says PETA president Ingrid Newkirk. Newkirk also compared the way animals are slaughtered to the way Dahmer was convicted of treating his 17 victims.

PETA said that it wanted to remodel the home into a restaurant called “Eat for Life: Home Cooking.”

The 2,000-square foot, three-bedroom home in Bath Township, Ohio, has been listed for sale at $295,000 for the past month. It is the house where Dahmer in 1978 had killed the first of 17 victims and had scattered the remains on the 1.5-acre property.

PETA’s public announcement last week about its intentions to purchase the home for a vegan restaurant was met with support and criticism.

At the time of the announcement, Richard Lubinski of Stouffer Realty, the listing agent for the home, told the Akron Beacon Journal that he wasn’t sure if PETA’s offer was serious or a publicity stunt but “if they want to buy it and repurpose it, that’s phenomenal.”

PETA announced Tuesday that it was scrapping its plans due to zoning issues, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports. The property is zoned only for single-family residential use and not for commercial purposes. “Getting zoning for a restaurant on this site is apparently impossible, in part because of issues with the plumbing and waste systems,” says Moira Colley, a spokeswoman for PETA. The home, located in a wooded area, has a septic system and well water.