As California considers a fur ban, many in L.A. cling to their minks
LOS ANGELES - Decades before gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill, fortune-seekers flocked to California for its furs. Now the state is poised to become the first in the country to ban them - a legislative drama in which sunny Los Angeles, land of beach curls and flip-flops, is the unlikely star.
The assemblywoman who wrote the fur products prohibition and the state senator who could kill the measure represent overlapping districts in Glendale and Burbank. The animal rights organization that helped craft the ban is headquartered in Sherman Oaks, the fur industry's national lobby across the San Fernando Valley in Porter Ranch. Los Angeles recently became the largest American city to outlaw the sale, manufacture or trade of most fur products, but that hasn't stopped Angelenos from flocking to buy them.
"I just stocked up for Burning Man," said Sean Hammond, a vendor at the
