GrandLife Pulls the Plug on Fish-Rental Program After PETA Appeal

Company Nabs Fish-Shaped Vegan Chocolates for Pledging to Stop Placing Goldfish in Rooms at Soho Grand, Roxy Hotels

For Immediate Release:
April 25, 2019

Contact:
Audrey Shircliff 202-483-7382

After discussions with PETA, GrandLife—the parent company of the Soho Grand Hotel and the Roxy Hotel—ended the hotels’ goldfish-rental program, in which live fish were delivered to guests’ rooms upon request, and found new homes for the fish. In thanks, PETA sent GrandLife a box of delicious, vegan fish-shaped chocolates.

“Just like humans, fish can become depressed from a lack of space, stimulation, and adequate enrichment,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “GrandLife did the right thing in pledging to stop using these sensitive aquatic animals as interior decorations.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, which is the human-supremacist view that other species are nothing more than commodities. Fish communicate, form bonds, grieve, and are capable of experiencing fear, pain, and stress. But in the pet trade, they’re transported from dealers to pet stores inside cramped bags and containers that bear no resemblance to their natural habitats. Many die in transit.

GrandLife joins Kimpton Hotels, UncommonGoods, and Westfield Sarasota Square mall in Florida in taking steps to show kindness to fish, and PETA is now calling on the Pearl Hotel in San Diego to do the same by ending its betta fish–rental program.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.