Also true to West Hollywood's political culture, the ban began as a campaign promise made by then–City Council candidate D'Amico, a dark-horse challenger in March 2011, who needed ground troops to reach voters in a city of 34,650. Lavinthal and her animal-rights friends campaigned vigorously for D'Amico. When he got elected, the fur ban instantly became his priority.
"It has brought tons of thoughtful press, and it has shed light on an idea that's time has come," D'Amico explains. In response to DiLascia's charges of hypocrisy, he says, "I do own leather shoes and eat poultry and fish, and I am confident that not selling fur in West Hollywood is not just good public policy, it's good for our economy, too. It sets us apart in another new and exciting way. ... I am still very excited about how this changes the discussion and how this can potentially change people's behavior. Do I think I am hypocritical? I do not."
PHOTO BY RILEY KERN
Patrick DiLascia, shown with his assistant, Heather Manasseha, in his West Hollywood shop
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D'Amico wants West Hollywood to be a "model city" for fur bans. But fur apparel is extremely popular; in 2010, U.S. fur sales were $1.3 billion, and FICA executive director Keith Kaplan is highly skeptical of the councilman's big dream. "John D'Amico is naive at best if he thinks he can go anywhere along those lines," he says.
With those fighting words, Lavinthal and D'Amico are headed for a pull-no-punches showdown with the deep-pocketed fur industry.
Ellen Lavinthal never dreamed she'd be an animal-rights activist, although her father and her Jewish upbringing instilled a sense of giving back and helping the underdog as she traveled with her parents from one United Way post to another. "I was living in all these places and feeling like an underdog, too," she says.
Lavinthal studied law at USC and later married Dennis Lavinthal, who owns the successful music industry trade magazine Hits. Soon after taking the bar, she met Leeta Anderson, widow of actor Warner Anderson, who had roles in the cult classic TV show Peyton Place and critically acclaimed film The Caine Mutiny (1954).
Lavinthal was a volunteer at Leeta Anderson's nonprofit animal rescue, the Animal Alliance, where the aging Anderson needed someone to take over. "I never practiced law, and I never looked back," Lavinthal says.
Instead, she threw herself into the cause, trying to get animal-rights legislation passed in Sacramento and elsewhere. After more than two decades, she was deep within the animal-rights movement, and in January 2011, West Hollywood animal-rights and community activist Ed Buck came calling.
Buck had been approached by John D'Amico's campaign staffers, who wanted help from animal-rights activists to unseat any incumbent in 2011. The council job was virtually lifelong: In its 28-year history, only two council members had ever been voted out.
Buck, who regularly criticizes West Hollywood's political class, remembers, "I was looking for a reason for the animal-welfare community to get excited for D'Amico. I asked if he would support a fur ban. His campaign [advisers] said, 'No way,' but John embraced the idea."
After D'Amico gave the green light to such a ban, "my first call was to Ellen," Buck says. "I had worked with her before, and she had access to so many people in the animal-welfare movement."
Lavinthal immediately signed on to D'Amico's campaign. She and her animal-rights friends knocked on voters' doors, distributed fliers, called voters from phone banks and did anything else that was needed. Lavinthal organized a major fundraiser for D'Amico, and animal-rights activists donated generously to his campaign: nearly $7,700, a large sum for a West Hollywood race. In March 2011, D'Amico decisively unseated Lindsey Horvath, only the second incumbent to lose in West Hollywood history.
But he also surprised everyone by getting more votes than two of the most powerful people in West Hollywood, longtime incumbents Abbe Land and John Heilman, who both retained their seats.
"We got him a lot of votes," Lavinthal says. "Maybe he would have won anyway, but it wouldn't have been by the landslide that he won by. It was unheard of in West Hollywood."
D'Amico agrees. Two months later, in May 2011, D'Amico introduced legislation for the country's first fur ban. Lavinthal, Buck and animal-rights activists were ecstatic.
Over the past three decades, PETA and other animal-rights activists have mounted a highly publicized anti-fur effort. From throwing red paint on people wearing fur jackets to PETA-sponsored media campaigns that feature celebrities and cuddly animals, activists have sought to humiliate and to tug on heartstrings in order to change public opinion about fur. The only problem is, fur has not gone away.
Fur apparel has become increasingly popular — from 1991 to 2005 U.S. fur sales jumped from $1 billion to $1.82 billion, according to FICA, before dipping a bit in the last few years. Legendary editor Anna Wintour, who has featured fur in the pages of the trendsetting magazine Vogue, is largely acknowledged to be a reason for that increase. With the West Hollywood fur ban, animal-rights activists were given a ray of hope that things might be changing in their favor.
Fashion retailers and the West Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, though, were incredulous about the ban. "We didn't think it was going to come about constitutionally," says Morrill.
