The city of Sioux Falls ignored state law when it issued a series of building permits on a 1,800-square-foot butcher shop in northeast Sioux Falls, a Minnehaha County judge said Tuesday.

Wholestone Farms, LLC, last week received the final permit from the Sioux Falls Planning and Development Services Department necessary to operate, a project milestone company officials believed would protect them from a proposed ballot initiative to prohibit new meat-processing facilities from opening within city limits.

But Judge Sandra Hoglund Hanson said the occupancy permit issued Friday –along with six others issued since Smart Growth Sioux Falls successfully petitioned to get the project on the Nov. 8 ballot – violated state election laws, which require government to take no action once it is certified on the ballot.

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“It does not seem the city should’ve taken action with respect to the subject matter of the petition, in other words slaughterhouses,” the Second Circuit judge said during Tuesday’s two-hour hearing in the Minnehaha County Courthouse.