October 30, 2019 | 4:47pm
The City Council on Wednesday approved a sweeping package of animal-rights bills that include banning the sale of the controversial French delicacy foie gras beginning in 2022 and further tightening regulations on the horse carriage industry.
“This is an historic day for animals at the New York City Council,” said Council Speaker Corey Johnson, drawing loud cheers from dozens of animal-rights activists. ‘We want a big city that is judged, of course, by how we treat our fellow people, but we also want to be judged by how we treat animals … We want to be at the forefront of protecting animals in New York City.”
The foie gras ban would apply to all New York City restaurants and vendors that sell “force-fed” food products.
Violators would face civil fines ranging from $500 to $2,000. Under an earlier version of the bill, violators would’ve also faced up to a year in jail for each offense but that measure was eliminated.
The bill, introduced by Councilwoman Carlina Rivera (D-Manhattan) in January, ultimately gained key support from Mayor Bill de Blasio and Johnson only after it was recently re-worked to also include a three-year phase-in period to help affected businesses adjust to the new rules. It was approved 42-6 by council members.
Foie gras, which means “fatty liver,” is made by force-feeding ducks and geese to enlarge their livers. Feeding tubes are stuck down the animals’ throats during the harvesting process.
While the legislation is widely back by animal-rights activists, it has come under fire from local restaurant and vendors who sell the delicacy — as well as the farmers who produce it.
A coalition of three upstate farms in the Catskills that are main producers of the city’s foie gras supply said in a statement that they plan to challenge the ban in the court, claiming the birds they raise are treated “humanely.” They estimated more than 400 jobs and millions of dollars in annual revenue both in and out of the city would be lost due to the ban.
The US Supreme Court in January rejected a challenge to an existing foie gras ban in California.
The package of seven bill approved by the Council also includes a measure by Councilman Keith Powers (D-Manhattan) that will prohibit carriage horses from working when temperatures hit at least 80 degrees.
The current threshold in the summer is 90 degrees. Carriage horses also can’t work when temperatures reach below 18 degrees.
The animal-rights package also includes another bill by Rivera that will prohibit the sale, capture or possession of pigeons and other wild birds in the city.
In other business, the Council voted 35-13 to approve a bill by Brooklyn Democrat Antonio Reynoso that will overhaul the commercial waste industry in New York by dividing the city into at least 20 zones, with up to three private carters selected through a bidding process to serve each zone.
Under the existing system, 90 companies collect 3 million tons of trash and recycling debris annually. Reynoso and other bill supporters say the plan would cut hauling-truck traffic in half, reducing the environmental impacts and dangers of trash pickups.
Detractors say they fear the plan could create a mini-monopoly system that drives smaller carting companies out of business.