Fur Ban in West Hollywood is First of Its Kind

If you opened this article hoping someone, somewhere had finally taken the initiative to ban furries, I’m afraid you will be leaving sadly disappointed.

Yes, there is a fur ban in West Hollywood, but the ban deals with the pricey, wearable kind of fur and not the creepy, fandomsexual genre. The use of fur in fashion is not without controversy, and the practice has fallen out of favor to a degree in recent years given high-profile fur bashings in the 80s and 90s. While some designers have still adhered to the use of animal fur in their pieces, many eschew the product as it leads to the deaths of animals for no other reason than to utilize their shiny, warm pelts for fashion purposes. Anti-fur activists estimate that 8 million animals per year are trapped for their fur, while 30 million are raised solely for that purpose.

Given the controversial nature of the fashion choice, the fur ban should not be entirely surprising. Lawmakers in the California city of West Hollywood voted 3-1 on the decision with one abstention vote on the measure. And the fur ban does not extend to the wearing of fur- an important distinction- it merely limits the sale of the love-it-or-hate-it material within the borders of the tiny jurisdiction.

Those who oppose the bill say that out of around 200 clothing stores in West Hollywood, about half sell some fur-related things and those items are estimated to account for about $2 million in revenue for all the shops combined each year. The ordinance was given extra time before going into effect on September 21st, 2013 so city officials can determine the impact on local commerce.

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