After months of public hearings and two court challenges on Thursday, the Kaufman Board of Adjustments ordered the Dallas Crown horse slaughter plant to close by Sept. 30.

“People need to understand that basically this is the first shot. We estimate that it could take up to two years,” Kaufman city planner Terry Capehart said after the meeting.

He said court challenges to the ruling could take that long, but city attorney Robert Hager said he hoped the legal cases could be cleared by the Sept. 30 closing date.

The board first reaffirmed its declaration that the plant, at 2000 Fair Street on the western edge of downtown, was a public nuisance and health and safety hazard.

Board members Jimmy Reed (left) and Steve Hulme

Then, on a motion by Steve Hulme and seconded by Clayton Kelly, the board voted unanimously to close the plant.

“We’ll probably be challenging the decision of the board,” Dallas Crown attorney Mark Calabria said after the meeting.

Dallas Crown and its sister company, Waldo, had already lost two court challenges Thursday.

The companies sought a temporary restraining order to halt the board’s meeting but were turned down by County Court at Law Judge Erleigh Norville and District Judge Mike Chitty.

The companies sought the order saying that members of the board were prejudiced, that they could not legally have the same attorney as the city and that the landowners right to due process had been violated.

“We are here to make it clear this is a death penalty case for our client. Once you tell them they can no longer do what they do, our business is over,” Waldo’s attorney Bruce Monning told the board.

Thursday was the sixth public hearing on the plant. It is one of only three in the United States that slaughters horses for human consumption. The others are in Fort Worth and Illinois.

The horses are killed and butchered at the Dallas Crown plant then shipped to Europe. Horsemeat has become more popular in Europe because of fears of mad cow disease.

American horsemeat is particularly prized because the horses have been grazed rather than raised in a feed lot.

A Belgian company, Chevideco, owns the companies. Legally, Waldo owns the property and most of the equipment. Dallas Crown runs the processing operations.

Residents and the city have been fighting the plant for years. Various lawsuits have been filed by both sides and the city succeeded in requiring the company to put in some environmental controls.

Nationally, the American Humane Society and other animal protection groups have been trying to shut down all the horse slaughtering operations.

Congress passed a law last year that kept the government from inspecting the meat, a requirement for export. But under U.S. Department of Agriculture rules the companies will be allowed to pay for the inspections. The Humane Society has filed a lawsuit concerning the inspections, saying the agriculture department is trying to thwart the will of Congress.

In Kaufman, the board declared the plant a public nuisance on Nov. 29. Then it had to determine whether the companies had recouped their investments and, if not, how long it would take before the plant could be forced to close.

City Attorney Robert Hager

City attorney Mr. Hager and Don Feare, representing a group of homeowners near the plant, presented evidence that the companies had more than recovered their investments and could be closed immediately.

But Mr. Monning said with the investment in the property and the cost of relocation, “we need to make $6 million before we can be put out of business.”

Since the companies only earned about $132,000 a year that would take more than 45 years.

Mr. Feare said that Dallas Crown was the only business being closed and that it had no financial interest. He said that Waldo did not have to demolish the buildings and that the land could be sold.

Mr. Monning opened his arguments by asking that board members to “search their hearts” about their attitudes and whether any of them were biased or prejudiced.

He asked Mr. Hulme to step down from the proceedings. “I am unaware of a single adversary greater to our client that was Mary Nash,” Mr. Hulme’s late wife.

He pointed to the Web site www.marynash.org which was called the Bible of the anti-slaughtering movement and the photo of Ms. Nash and Mr. Hulme on that site.

Mr. Hulme did not respond then but later said he has never visited the Web site.

It was Mr. Hulme who made the motions to close the plant and set a Sept. 30 deadline.

Robert Eldridge, who lives next to the plant and has led the fight against it, said he was pleased by the decision.

“I’m very happy with the decision they made,” he said. “We just want to be able to breathe again.”

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