Chicago fur ban rejected by City Council: 'About personal choice'

Jake Sheridan, Chicago Tribune on Mar 12, 2025

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CHICAGO — Aldermen rejected an effort Wednesday to ban the sale of new fur products in Chicago.

The failed ordinance aimed to fight animal cruelty with “compassion and empathy,” sponsor Ald. Raymond Lopez, 15th, said. But the opponents who won out argued the regulation would put family-owned fur stores out of business in an act of government overreach.

The City Council struck down the measure in a 26-to-19 vote.

Ald. Stephanie Coleman, chair of the aldermanic Black Caucus, argued furs are an important part of Black culture “about embracing elegance in a world that has not been kind to us.”

“Let’s support policies that uplift businesses rather than shut them down. Let’s respect consumer choice rather than dictate decisions,” Coleman, 16th, said. “And let’s focus on policies that actually matter to people in Chicago.”

The measure breezed through a first vote in the City Council’s License and Consumer Protection Committee last week, but faced tougher scrutiny Wednesday as the Black Caucus organized to strike it down.

A critical bloc of 15 Black aldermen voted against the measure, while several progressives joined Lopez and his allies in its support. Mayor Brandon Johnson appeared to remain neutral as aldermen jockeyed for votes.

Before the vote, Lopez argued his ordinance was a compromise and said there were 97 other business regulations up for a vote during the meeting.

“That is the job of this body. To regulate, to set guidelines for what expectations are in our community,” he told colleagues. “That isn’t new.”

The ordinance would help “an industry on the decline” prepare for the future, Lopez added.

“This body knows how to walk and chew gum at the same time,” he said. “This is a principle moment. This, yes, is about morality. This is our moment to show how things are all related.”

Ald. Matt O’Shea, 19th, joined Coleman and a group of Black pastors before the Wednesday meeting to argue the vote is “about personal choice.”

“Are we going to ban leather next? Are we going to ban beef? Are we going to put Ronald McDonald out of a job?” he said. “I can’t believe we’re here today, that this is actually going to come to a vote at this time in our city. We need to be focused on public safety, on public health, on our schools, on attracting business, on supporting business.”

To drive his point home, O’Shea later sang to his colleagues the song made locally famous in the advertisements for one of his ward’s two furriers: “Feel the worth and luxury that you deserve, Andriana Furs.”

Michael K. Harris Jr., government manager for the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, predicted the ordinance would have banned the sale of shearling and sheepskin products, such as the popular Ugg boots. Lopez told the Tribune he does not believe the ordinance would ban such products and was not intended to.

“Gentlemen, every woman in your life has Ugg boots,” Coleman said during the floor debate to laughs.

The ordinance would have allowed the sale of used fur products and included clear exceptions for leather, cowhide and deerskin products. It also intended to make exceptions to allow the sale of secondhand fur products, as well as new fur products used in religious and cultural practices.

Lopez is the latest Chicago City Council member to court controversy with a proposal aimed at animal rights. North Side Ald. Joe Moore in 2006 got the council to ban foie gras, prohibiting restaurants from serving the delicacy made by force-feeding ducks and geese to enlarge their livers.

Mayor Richard M. Daley at the time called the foie gras ban “the silliest law the City Council has ever passed” and warned it would hurt economic development. Two years later, restaurateur Ald. Tom Tunney led a successful effort to overturn it.

Gerard Brown, owner of Beverly’s 31-year-old Island Furs, said before the vote a ban would put his store out of business. It is one of three black-owned furriers in the country, according to O’Shea.

“I can understand if people don’t want to wear my product. That’s okay, that’s what makes my country, freedom of speech, freedom of choice,” Brown said. “My creativity will stop because they’ve dictated to me how I should create my fashion.”

Aldermen also approved in a 34-to-15 vote Wednesday a $280,000 deal to settle a lawsuit against the city from Miracle Boyd, an activist whose front tooth was knocked out when a police officer punched her at a July 2020 protest.

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