monkey בייסט א קינד אין ברוקלין

Monkey bites boy in store
Steven Seidler, 45, of Mill Basin, said he uses a laser pointer to indicate what he needs the monkey to retrieve. At Key Food, Seidler said, Darla was getting items for him off the shelves.

"Darla is my life," Seidler said yesterday. "The kid just reached over and grabbed her. I was shocked she took so much abuse before biting him."

The boy's grandmother, Helene Romano, 47, said the monkey went ape on young Thomas, who did not even notice the animal until he was bitten in the vegetable aisle.

"I'm walking into the Key Food, and the next thing I know, my grandson is like, 'Grandma, Grandma it hurts!' And I'm looking around and I see blood coming out of his arm," Helene Romano said.

Police arrived at the scene after the 4 p.m. incident and did not issue any summonses to Seidler, who had all the proper paperwork for Darla.

"I'm telling the lady, 'Get your kid away from my monkey!'" Seidler recalled.

Helene Romano believes the monkey is violent and should be in a zoo. She claims Seidler tried to leave the scene and had to be stopped by several people in the store, and that his monkey has attacked before, according to his neighbors.

"I'm an animal lover myself, but this monkey does not belong with this man," she said.

Seidler, who lives alone and depends on the monkey to groom and bathe him, claims he has never seen Darla get angry before, and he said he typically doesn't frequent the Key Food store on Avenue U.

"I almost never go there. It was Sunday. I needed a quart of milk," he said. "Usually, things get delivered to me. Next thing I know, my monkey is getting ripped apart by some kid."

Romano was treated and released from Maimonedes Hospital.

PEEKABOO BITER

Wed Aug 4, 2:44 AM ET

By HASANI GITTENS and GERSH KUNTZMAN

The macaque monkey who bit a 2-year-old Brooklyn boy in a supermarket on Monday once nibbled on another young neighbor, The Post has learned.


Darla the monkey, who performs menial household tasks for her disabled owner, Steve Seidler, bit 6-year-old Shayna Wasserman in front of her Bergen Beach home in June 2003, the victim's mother said.


"Steve was walking the monkey and his pit bull," said Jessica Wasserman. "The monkey jumped off his shoulder and onto my daughter's face. She blocked him, so he bit her shoulder."


"It was very painful," Shayna, now 8, recalled. "He just ripped the skin off. After that, I was afraid to go outside. I hate monkeys now. There should be no monkeys in the world."


Shayna's mother said she's now upset about the second macaque attack on Monday, when little Thomas Romano was bitten by Darla after he tried to pet the monkey in a Key Food in Mill Basin.


"It should not have happened again," she said.


Wasserman said that police did not confiscate the monkey from Seidler, who says he needs Darla because he is disabled. But some neighbors questioned the extent of his disabilities.


"He says he can't reach the shelves in a supermarket, but I've seen him chasing his monkey and chasing his dog down the street," said Marty Reingold, a neighbor. "This man does not need a monkey."


Seidler did not return calls and did not answer his door yesterday.


Wasserman showed The Post a copy of a police report on the attack on her daughter. The NYPD, which confirmed Monday's attack on the boy in the supermarket, declined comment on the earlier case.


Monkeys are not permitted as pets in New York City. A spokeswoman for the Center for Animal Care and Control, which confiscates illegal animals, referred questions to the Department of Health, which did comment.


Monkeys are relatively new as service animals. But they are popular with paralyzed people.


"They are wonderful for performing household chores," said Judi Zazula, director of Helping Hands, a Boston agency that trains and places monkeys.


"They can take things out of the fridge, put things in a microwave oven, put videocassettes into the VCR," she said.


Zazula said her agency trains only capuchin monkeys because macaques are susceptible to diseases that can be passed on to humans.


She also said that monkeys — even trained ones — should be placed in a pet carrier outside the ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^home.


"They are wild animals," said Dr. Colleen McCann, curator for primates at the Bronx Zoo.


"Yes, they can be trained to do certain tasks, but it is inappropriate to take a macaque into the cereal aisle."