Pittsburgh’s foie gras ban prompts threat of lawsuit
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A New York company plans to sue Pittsburgh over its ban on the French delicacy foie gras.
Pittsburgh City Council on Monday voted to ban foie gras. A spokesperson for Mayor Ed Gainey could not immediately confirm whether the mayor planned to sign the legislation or offer additional comment on the measure.
The bill — sponsored by council members Bruce Kraus, D-South Side, and Erika Strassburger, D-Squirrel Hill — bans the sale of force-fed animal products, including foie gras, which is created by forcing a tube down a bird’s throat and injecting unhealthy amounts of feed. The force-feeding practice enlarges the animal’s liver to create foie gras.
Marcus Henley, vice president of New York-based Hudson Valley Foie Gras, said he rejected the notion that foie gras is animal cruelty. He said the company plans to sue the city over the legislation. Foie gras is made from the liver of ducks or geese.
“Force-feeding is widely misunderstood,” he said. “The use of feeding by a tube, it doesn’t cause any discomfort or any damage to the ducks.”
The bill’s supporters said the legislation was about banning a practice they felt was cruel to animals.
“This isn’t about telling people what they can and can’t eat,” Councilwoman Barb Warwick, D-Greenfield, said ahead of council’s vote Monday. “This is about animal cruelty.”
The industry is regulated at the state and federal levels, Henley said, to ensure the birds aren’t diseased and that foie gras farmers are meeting the necessary standards.
“The regulatory agencies of the state and federal government have visited our farm many times,” Henley said. “Anyone who’s been here doesn’t have a problem with the farming process.”
The legislation allows entities that sell the food to provide documentary evidence that the animal was not force fed to gain an exemption. Any establishment violating the ordinance will be fined $500 per violation.
Henley questioned the exemption process, explaining that foie gras is, by definition, a force-fed animal product.
Kraus, the bill’s co-sponsor, has acknowledged there’s not a booming foie gras industry in Pittsburgh. He said the legislation was meant to be “preventative in nature” because there are no other city laws on the matter.
While Henley also acknowledged that Pittsburgh isn’t a major foie gras market, he said he’s still willing to fight the ban on principle.
“If we were mistreating the animals, I wouldn’t have come here in the first place,” Henley said. “It’s just really personally upsetting as a good farmer to have people in a faraway place say I’m not a good farmer.”
Henley also said he doesn’t feel the legislation could withstand a court challenge.
“The city of Pittsburgh has banned a legal, federally inspected product produced in other states and other countries,” he said. “You still have laws in this country that prevent a city from banning interstate commerce or international commerce for reasons that aren’t completely correct.”
Though other cities and states have enacted similar measures, several foie gras bans have been rescinded. Chicago overturned a similar foie gras ban, and the state of New York determined a New York City law barring the French delicacy was illegal. A court ruled that Californians could buy foie gras from out-of-state retailers despite a law banning the product from being sold in-state.
City Council President Theresa Kail-Smith, D-West End, and Councilman Anthony Coghill, D-Beechview, voted against Pittsburgh’s foie gras ban Monday.
Kraus and Strassburger this month also introduced legislation that would have outlawed fur sales and horse-drawn carriage rides in the city. City Council put those efforts on pause, but could take them up again in the new year.
Related:
• Pittsburgh considers banning fur sales, horse-drawn carriage rides, foie gras
• Pittsburgh bans foie gras, pauses efforts to bar fur sales, horse-drawn carriages