Live Lobsters Are Target of Arcade Claw
washingpost.com
By David A. Fahrenthold
The Love Maine Lobster Claw machine looks like a combination of a fish tank and an arcade game where a player manipulating a flimsy crane grabs at prizes.
"Except," said Peter Walsh, whose Eight Corners pizza parlor in Scarborough, Maine, has one of the machines, "you catch lobsters instead."
This machine and others like it have now made an old restaurant fixture, the bubbling lobster tank, into a light-flashing moneymaker. They've also made animal-rights activists say the sad life of a restaurant shellfish may be getting worse.
The Love Maine Lobster Claw, which is made in the town of Biddeford, Maine, consists of a 55-gallon tank that can hold as many as 15 one-pound lobsters. For $2, players have 30 seconds to maneuver a "claw" around the tank in hopes of grabbing a crustacean. If they do, the lobster is often cooked for free.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has objected: "Cruelty to animals is not a game," a spokeswoman said.
But Joe Zucchero, whose firm makes the game, says the "claw" is quite gentle, and takes the lobster to a fate it would meet anyway.
"Every lobster that's caught . . . that lobster's going to be cooked," he said. "These lobsters just happen to be caught again." |
