Animal Policy, Animals and Culture 
No Comments New Year Brings Fur Ban in California
It’s a new year, meaning lots of new laws are taking effect throughout the land, including a ban on fur in California. More accurately, a ban on the sale and manufacturing of new fur products. This kind of thing has become par for the course in California, so it shouldn’t be a surprise – though it should be troubling to you, regardless of whether or not you choose to wear real fur. The hubris of a congresswoman from sunny Glendale, California announcing to the rest of the world that fur is over – and further, that it has no place in a “sustainable future” (how many hundreds of years will it take for that faux fur coat to biodegrade, again?) would almost be laughable if there were no real-world consequences or precedents from her bill.
Unlike animal issues related to things like food production or pets that virtually everybody has a stake in, fur can be exploited by its opponents by tying it to displays of ostentatious wealth and its lack of functionality in many climates of the world (see: Glendale, California). Combining divide-and-conquer tactics with a side of pragmatic-sounding “and do we really even need this?” can be really effective. This means that as far as cause-marketed issues go, fur is fairly low-hanging fruit. Opponents of the ban were correct in saying it ultimately boiled down to one class of people wanting to tell another class what they could buy/wear…. which, again, should be highly concerning, regardless of one’s feelings about wearing fur.
New California laws in 2023 include a fur ban, new state holidays
Resources
★ Prop 12 Enforcement Will Wait in California for Supreme Court Ruling
★ Appeals Court Upholds Limit on California’s Foie Gras Ban
