California Foie Gras Ban Upheld By U.S. District Court

Despite some misleading news coverage in mid-July, the claim that foie gras is back on California restaurant menus is FALSE, says California attorney Bryan Pease, in concurrence with The Humane Society of the United States, who reports that the U.S. District Court “ruled that the state’s foie gras sales ban is entirely constitutional, reaffirming California’s authority to keep cruel products out of its marketplace.”

Pease explains that the July 14, 2020 ruling by the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles was “a final rejection” of the foie gras industry’s continued attempts to circumvent the Ninth Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court rulings upholding CA’s humane law against the sale of foie gras.

Foie gras is a diseased-liver “delicacy” obtained from slaughtered ducks and geese whose fat-sickened livers are produced by cranking slop through metal pipes down their throats.

California’s ban on the production and sale of foie gras went into effect July 1, 2012, having been signed into law by CA’s governor in 2004.

Foie gras can be legally shipped by out-of-state-producers (via Amazon, for example) for home consumption in California, but restaurant and other retail sales are prohibited.

Attorney Bryan Pease clarifies that it “has never been illegal to purchase foie gras out of state and bring it in. The ban is simply against the sale of foie gras from force-fed ducks [and geese] within the state, such as restaurants or stores. It was never a possession ban or an import ban.”

The July 14th ruling, he says, “DENIES Hudson Valley Foie Gras’ motion to reconsider, and specifically notes that as to foie gras purchased outside of CA, ‘once the foie gras reaches California, it cannot be resold within the state.’”