Authorities have shut down Archie McPhee after a six-month police investigation found the local plastic tchotchke dealer was actually a front for a rubber chicken fighting ring.
In an early morning raid, police SWAT teams swept through the novelty toy retailer and arrested 11 people, who, according to sources, were all huddled in a dimly lit back room, shouting, drinking and placing bets as two rubber chickens circled and pecked at each other.
“It was just awful in there,” Seattle Police Spokesman Sgt. Jeff Ambrose said in a brief interview with reporters at the scene. “There were rubber wattles, rubber beaks and rubber gizzards everywhere.”
Police say they began investigating Archie McPhee after receiving an anonymous tip. Investigators spoke with neighbors in the area, who reported hearing clucking coming from the store at all hours of the night, and police later discovered the store was the number one purchaser on the west coast of rubber chicken feed.
Late Monday, police could be seen hauling away trucks full of evidence, including pallets of rubber chicken eggs, boxes of dubiously-sourced medical equipment, and hundreds of rubber chickens.
Police are still searching for the store’s owner, who fled when police arrived. Authorities have described him as an eight-foot tall Sasquatch with a bobbly head.
