It would be irresponsible for a pet owner... but you have to understand the context is New York rats, which exist in immense numbers, massively beyond every other major US city, because of a century of just leaving trash piled up on the sidewalk (https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-11-27/new-yo...).

Bodega cats aren't pets, they're a cheap and low-impact way to keep rats from moving into the bodega en masse. If one gets run over by a car, that's just an unfortunate cost of business for a bodega owner who needs an option that works better than putting glue traps every five feet or fumigating the entire place every week.