No Letup in Beverly Hills Fur Flap

Mike Henig, the owner of Henig Furs Inc. of Montgomery, Ala., gets furious when he talks about Beverly Hills.

So furious he donated $500 to defeat a May 11 ballot initiative that would force Beverly Hills furriers to put warning tags on their garments, informing customers what methods may have been used to kill the animals for their pelts.

So furious that he quotes the Bible.

Genesis, Chapter 3, Verse 21:

“The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them,” Henig read over the telephone.

“You see,” he added by way of interpretation, “God was the first furrier.”

With little more than a week to go and more than $150,000 in contributions raised, proponents and foes of Proposition A are locked in a war that reverberates far outside Beverly Hills city limits.

The stakes are high for a city with about a dozen stores that attract buyers from a widespread area.

Proposition A would require that any garment with fur valued at more than $50 be tagged with the warning label unless the store owner could show proof that the animal died under humane conditions.

The tags, the size of a credit card, would read: “Consumer notice: This product is made with fur from animals that may have been killed by electrocution, gassing, neck breaking, poisoning, clubbing, stomping or drowning and may have been trapped in steel-jaw, leg-hold traps.”

Fur industry representatives acknowledge that some animals are killed under painful conditions but argue that U.S. furriers adhere to strict veterinary guidelines that ensure painless death.

The group that put Proposition A on the ballot, Beverly Hills Consumers for Informed Choices, is a self-styled consumer protection group that was belittled as an extremist animal rights organization by the measure’s opponents. It got the industry’s attention in February when it presented 3,000 signatures to the city clerk, forcing a reluctant City Council to put the measure on the ballot.

In recent months, supporters have gathered the financial backing and support to spark heated debate, using tactics such as mailing graphic videotapes depicting animal slaughter to 5,000 of the city’s 20,000 registered voters.

If 30% of the voters turn out--a highly respectable showing in a special election--either side could triumph with little more than 3,000 votes.

Luke Montgomery, the 25-year-old spokesman for the Yes on A campaign, who describes himself as a former AIDS activist, said: “The issue is about cruelty to animals and lying to consumers.”

Critics of the initiative say that the consumer group is trying to exploit Beverly Hills to draw more attention to its animal rights stance.

“If they had filed the initiative in Torrance, do you think anyone would care?” asked Rudy Cole, who is managing the No on A campaign and in the 1980s worked on a successful campaign to force the Beverly Hills City Council to reverse an ordinance banning smoking in restaurants.

Both sides have been amassing funds for what is expected to be a final push this week.

As of April 24, the No on A committee had reported $80,708 in contributions, largely from fur industry sources, compared to $75,480 reported by the Yes on A campaign.

“Ads are increasing in the local newspapers, and both sides are going door to door, which has generated interest in the election,” said City Clerk Nina Udy.

Although turnout is hard to predict, the city has already received 2,351 absentee ballots--enough to represent more than a 10% turnout by themselves, and only about half the number of absentee ballot applications requested.

“The numbers are very high,” Udy said. “We have been averaging 100 to 200 [absentee ballots] a day.”

Celebrities have weighed in, supporting animal rights issues, and furriers from across the country have joined the fray, fearful that the initiative would set a precedent.

Jack Lemmon, Sid Caesar and Buddy Hackett, all of them Beverly Hills residents, have lent their names to the initiative. In a letter that the campaign mailed to all residents, Lemmon described the initiative as a “fair, common-sense, simple concept.”

Supporters also have filed a libel suit against the Beverly Hills Courier newspaper for its criticism of Proposition A campaigners as extremists.

For its part, the No on A committee has distributed literature accusing supporters of the measure of using “scare tactics, exaggerated and frightening messages” to get their point across. They also have compiled a list of supporters including current and former City Council members and other community leaders.

One foe, Mayor Tom Levyn, said the proposition would place Beverly Hills businesses at a competitive disadvantage. City officials also have questioned how they would enforce such a measure, and they have grumbled at the $60,000 cost of holding the special election.

Levyn, who joined the other four council members in urging a no vote, said he “thought this initiative would be more appropriate on the federal level.”

For some critics, the initiative is reminiscent of a 1990 Aspen, Colo., proposition that would have banned the sale of fur, making Aspen America’s first furrier-free city. The measure was defeated by a 2-1 margin, but that memory has done little to ease the anxiety of furriers watching the May 11 vote.

“How far do you go with this law?” asked Alabama furrier Henig. “Do you go in restaurants and ask how a fish was caught . . . by a hook, trap or net? Then do you go to the meat department and ask how that steak was butchered? That fish or lobster sitting in the tank. We going to steam it to death, cook it or boil it. Where does it stop?”

Sara Amundson, deputy director of the Washington, D.C.-based Doris Day Animal League, disagreed.

“Any consumer initiative that makes sure that people get basic information is good and may have a significant impact on their decision to buy,” said Amundson, whose organization contributed $500. “If you can label the way you manufacture a mattress, it makes sense that you can label the way a fur coat is manufactured.”