Meat Stinks! Uproar Over Smoke from Local BBQ Joint Prompts PETA Pro-Vegan Appeal

For Immediate Release:
June 3, 2026

Contact:
Sara Groves 202-483-7382

Following reports that neighbors of A&M BBQ are fuming over the excessive smoke and poor air quality caused by the restaurant’s outdoor commercial meat smokers, PETA plans to place a billboard in the area, encouraging residents to clear the air by keeping animals off the grill in the first place and going vegan.

“Where there’s smoke, there’s ire, but the real outrage is the filth, torment, and violent deaths that pigs and cows endure in the meat industry,” says PETA President Tracy Reiman. “PETA urges anyone who doesn’t want to deal with the stench of charred body parts to go vegan and leave animals in peace, not pieces.”

PETA points out that pigs are soothed by music, and cows mourn when a loved one dies or when they’re separated from each other. Yet in the meat industry, they’re crammed into filthy sheds or kept on crowded feedlots and subjected to tail docking, castration, and other mutilations with no pain relief. Eventually, they’re forced onto transport trucks for a terrifying journey to a slaughterhouse, where workers slit their throats—often while they’re still conscious.

Each person who goes vegan spares nearly 200 animals every year, dramatically shrinks their food-related carbon footprint, and slashes their risk of suffering from cancer, heart disease, strokes, diabetes, and obesity. PETA’s free vegan starter kit is filled with tips to help anyone looking to make the switch.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—points out that when it comes to the ability to feel pain, hunger, and thirst, a cow is a dog is a boy. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.