While not yet the law, the West Hollywood City Council voted unanimously last week to ban the sale of fur apparel within city limits.
Ed Buck, lead organizer of Fur Free West Hollywood, said “we declared in 1989 that West Hollywood was an animal-cruelty-free zone. And I think it’s very clear, we had a unanimous vote, this is the direction of the City of West Hollywood — we are expressing our humane values.”
How dumb is this? Buck even says “it is largely symbolic.” Then why do it? The City Council ignored an economic impact study which said this nonsense would strongly affect local businesses and lawyers are already lining up to terminate leases of retailers who sell fur apparel.
I love one of the comments I read. “If the point is to prevent animal suffering, why not ban the sale of meat? Why not ban leather? I don’t understand why animal skin with hair is so vilified, but eating animal flesh and wearing bare animal skins is given a pass?”
Maybe it’s because the local haute cuisine restaurants who don’t want to remove filet mignon from menus or the designer shops who don’t want to give up their Jimmy Choos or Christian Laboutins have louder lobbyists.
What’s even more ridiculous is the fact that you can walk across the street into Beverly Hills and do your fur shopping there.
This is just another perfect example of symbolism over substance.
