Initiative Qualifies by A Hair.
How Now in Beverly Hills?

By Teresa Platt, Executive Director, FCUSA

AFTER A MINIMAL SAMPLING of signatures on the petition for the "Consumers' Right to Informed Choices Act of 1999" qualified the initiative by a hair, the Beverly Hills City Clerk submitted the initiative to the City Council for action. The City was required at its January 5 Council meeting to either adopt the initiative, to incur the cost of holding a special election or refer the matter to legal staff for review. After listening to testimony from opponents Wanda Pressburger, a local furrier, and Keith Kaplan of California Fur, and proponent Luke Montgomery, the Council voted unanimously to refer the initiative to legal counsel. Mayor Les Bronte simply stated, "This does not sound like something the City would want to be involved in." Another council member called the measure "over the top."

Ironically, the presentation of the labeling initiative followed three hours of discussion as the Council attempted to avoid the unseemly and garish in maintaining decorum in signage. Keith Kaplan noted in his remark that the labeling initiative was also unseemly, in poor taste and garishly inappropriate for garments sold in Beverly Hills. The label, part of the thinly veiled animal rights agenda, would require furriers to deface their garments with "credit card" sized labels listing various methods that may (or may not) have been used to kill the animals involved. Naturally, furriers object.

The fur industry submitted information detailing how Federal Labeling laws preempt local labeling initiatives such as the one presented in Beverly. The City counsel will rule on this issue plus fiscal impact in 30 days.

Not surprisingly, a posting on an animal rights listserve by the Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade stated that the initiative had a poor chance of passing. In a telephone poll of city residents, about 70% of respondents said they opposed the initiative once they found out what it was really about, about 20% were in favor and the remainder were undecided.

According to the CAFT posting, "Some people they spoke to signed the petition but thought it was about cruelty to dogs and cats, and don't support it now that they know what it is."

It went on to say that "over 60% of the people don't think the methods of killing animals listed on the tags are inhumane! ... I guess Beverly Hills isn't the place for this initiative."

Whether the initiative will be put to a vote of the citizens of Beverly Hills will be decided in 30 days.

For further information on the Beverly Hills labeling initiative, see Animal Rights Signature Drive Goes Down in Flames and Are the Signatures Valid in Beverly Hills? Fur Farmers Think Not.

Teresa Platt is the executive director of Fur Commission USA which represents US-based fur farming families. She serves on the board of the Portland-Oregon based National Animal Interest Alliance and as secretary of Alliance for America, groups working to restore people and common sense to the environmental equation. Fur Commission USA, 826 Orange Avenue, #506, Coronado, CA 92118 USA, (619) 575-0139, (619) 272-2467/fax, furfarmers@aol.com, www.furcommission.com.
 
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