PRINCETON -- When County Commissioners agreed last week to allow a custom slaughterhouse in Boon Hill Township, the move drew no reaction from the audience of fewer than a half-dozen citizens.

Even commissioners were quiet. The only question came from Commissioner Allen Mims, who asked whether Eddie Rowe and his father, Kenneth, should have to plant trees as a buffer around the slaughterhouse.

If built by the Rowes, the slaughterhouse would sit on two acres surrounded by land the father and son already own. For that reason, commissioners exempted the Rowes from the buffer requirement.

But the lack of discussion belied the controversy surrounding the need for the slaughterhouse in the first place. Rowe and his father have been entangled for years in a legal battle with the state over the mass slaughter of lambs on their 300-acre Princeton-area farm.

Eddie Rowe said the controversy dates back to 2005, when the state Department of Agriculture caught wind of a religious ritual involving mass slaughter. For years, Rowe said, hundreds of Muslim families in Wake County had arranged to buy and kill the animals as part of the three-day religious festival known as Eid al-Adha, or the Festival of Sacrifice.

A News & Observer story published last year said many Muslims during Eid al-Adha buy a lamb or other animal to be slaughtered and shared among family and friends. Some Muslims choose to kill the animals themselves to adhere to dietary laws.

To be “halal,” or permitted, the animal must be killed with a sharp knife across the throat, according to the N&O article. Both carotid arteries must be cut at once so that the animal bleeds quickly and dies quietly. A prayer is said before the knife is drawn.

Don Delozier, director of the Agriculture Department’s meat and poultry division, said the Rowes had been operating a “clandestine slaughter operation” that violated state law. The law, Delozier said, does not allow someone to slaughter or have slaughtered an animal on another person’s property.

“If you have, say, four or five hogs, and come winter you want to slaughter them for yourself to provide meat for your family, that doesn’t really require anything special,” he said. “But if you want to slaughter others’ animals for them, you have to follow rules.”

Despite the state’s opposition to the ritual, the Rowes and their clientele won a legal battle in 2005 when a Johnston County judge mediated a settlement in a civil complaint. According to that settlement, the Rowes were able to allow the religious ceremony on their property. But they opened themselves up to fines by inspectors who could cite them for any apparent violations of state law.

Eddie Rowe said the state Department of Agriculture fined him and his father $10,000 for what inspectors deemed violations of the law. The Rowes have yet to pay.

Two years later, agricultural inspectors returned to the Rowes’ farm just days before Eid al-Adha was to begin. Armed with a search warrant, Rowe said, the inspectors shut down the operation and cost him more than $40,000 in revenue from the sale of lambs he was unable to deliver to more than 200 Muslim families in Wake County.

“I had to refund them their money,” Rowe said of his clients. “Then I had to turn around and sell [the lambs] wholesale. The difference in the price of the lambs from when these families bought them, minus the cost of trucking them in, was about $42,000.”

In 2007, the state also slapped the Rowes with a restraining order that prevented them from allowing the mass slaughter of animals on their property. That order remains in effect as the Rowes continue to tangle with the state in court.

Delozier said state officials have long sought the kind of outcome that now seems to be taking shape. State officials have told other media outlets in recent years that construction of a slaughterhouse would ensure a sanitary operation and prevent the outbreak of disease.

Rowe said his family decided three years ago that the cost of building a slaughterhouse — roughly $750,000 — seemed too high to pay. But with his hands now tied, Rowe said, the loss of potential business and the preservation of his friends’ religious tradition have caused him to reconsider.

“We’ve been very frustrated with this whole matter, but we do see the state’s side of the issue too,” he said.

Rowe and his father are now seeking several state grants that could help deflect some of the cost of building their slaughterhouse, which could be as large as 3,600 square feet. Winning the grants is not a guarantee. But should he succeed in his efforts, Rowe said, he hopes to have the slaughterhouse up and running by 2010.

Delozier said he hoped Rowe would be successful in the long run. “Hopefully [the county’s approval] will give him the opportunity to build a facility that will meet the intent of the state law,” he said. “We hope he’ll be profitable and successful in his business efforts.”