Ald. Raymond Lopez’s Trade in Fur Products ordinance is an exercise in performative position-taking. Lopez and the co-sponsors want to cloak themselves in moral superiority and call it a day. If aldermen were serious about furs and animal harm, they would address meat production, leather goods and other animal byproducts. But doing so would be unpopular. So, they opt for the appearance of activism. A faux fur-like approach. Visually similar but not the same.
Walking around the Loop in the middle of the cold Chicago winter, you will see hundreds of Chicagoans trying to stay warm with the aid of a fur-lined hood or maybe a full fur coat. These people might even go eat a burger, beef or hot dog on their lunch break.
Let’s give Lopez some leeway and assume that he is acting in the best interest of his constituents. What are his reasons? According to the text: “Animals raised on fur farms typically spend their entire lives in cramped and filthy cages.” That is a justification to eliminate furs but not meat consumption or egg production?
The ordinance also cites environmentalism: “The fur production process is energy intensive and has a significant environmental impact, including air and water pollution.” Do synthetic furs represent a smaller environmental impact?
Finally, the City Council preaches the availability of alternatives, “Considering the wide array of alternatives … the City Council finds that the demand for fur products does not justify the (harm).” Does it mean alternatives like leather? Cowhide? Deerskin? Does the length of an animal’s hair equate to its inherent value? Why are cows less deserving than the humble beaver?
I do not wear fur, but it is the principle of the matter. Incremental change is a valid political strategy, but people have already voted with their dollars. Go to Bloomingdale’s, and nearly all offerings are faux or synthetic alternatives. Canada Goose discontinued the use of fur in 2022.
The market has spoken, and the people of Chicago don’t have time for silly and performative actions when there are real problems to solve.
— Duncan Heidkamp, Chicago
Proposed law is a waste
I am pro-choice, and I resent the Chicago City Council’s proposed ordinance that would ban fur sales in the city, which would take away my choice on what garment I would like to purchase and wear. It’s useless, stupid and embarrassing. What a waste of time when there are so many important things that the City Council should be considering. (The Chicago Public Schools mess comes to mind.)
This is just another way to drive businesses away, create empty storefronts and certainly make the city less appealing to anyone who might want to open a business here.
If this ordinance comes up for a vote, my suggestion would be that only vegetarians should be allowed to vote for it.
And a shout-out to my alderman, Matt O’Shea, who stated the obvious. These businesses have created jobs, they have contributed to our tax base, they are our neighbors and they will close.
— Elizabeth Butler Marren, Chicago
A hypocritical stance
Until recently, I thought of Ald. Raymond Lopez as a reasonable, capable and moderate city politician. And then he fell for the folly that the “barbaric and inhumane” fur industry is raising animals for their pelts. Do farmers and ranchers exhibit “barbaric and inhumane” practices bringing that steak to the alderman’s table? Are his leather products humanely produced? Is it barbaric to consume a domestic animal’s flesh at a fundraising dinner?
Wake up. Alderman. Hypocrisy is calling.
— William O’Neill, Chicago
Work on real problems
We have major issues that need to be addressed, such as pensions, city payroll, Chicago Public Schools and housing for people who are homeless, and instead, our City Council is spending time on a proposed ban on the selling of new fur.
It isn’t like everything is working well and there is $2 billion sitting in the rainy day fund.
How about working on real major problems to benefit all of Chicago?
— Lee Berenbaum, Chicago
The issues that affect us
Perhaps the City Council should concern itself with issues that directly affect more residents than whether fur coats are sold within city limits.
I’m an early morning Blue Line rider, and more services for homeless residents comes to mind. Maybe the council could work on opening new single-room occupancy units in empty office buildings. Adding social services, mental health services and job training would go a long way toward helping far more people than banning mink coats.
— Anne Goodman, Chicago
RAs are not ‘workers’
Do undergraduate resident advisers need a union? Undergraduate resident advisers are not “workers” — they are students (“UIC’s undergrad resident advisers move to unionize,” Jan. 31).
I graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago’s sister school in Urbana-Champaign in May 2023. I remember living in the dorms, and I’m familiar with the responsibilities of an undergraduate residential adviser.
In fact, I applied to be an RA at UIUC and was rejected. And I’m just one of many. For the 2024-25 school year, only 63 RAs were hired to work at UIC out of 130 applicants, Freedom of Information Act records indicate.
A majority of undergraduate applicants recognize how lucrative it is to be an RA: RAs usually get their own room, a stipend, a meal plan and free housing. For a regular UIC student, that’s worth more than $15,000 a year.
Complaints about poor hourly rates for RAs fall flat when considering housing is one of the major costs driving student loan debt. As of 2023, the average Gen Z borrower had an outstanding student loan balance of nearly $25,000. Rising cost of rents, especially on and around campuses, adds to the burden when there’s virtually no other way to get housing costs covered aside from student loans. Even UIC’s Aspire grant or UIUC’s Illinois Commitment, of which I was a recipient, cover tuition costs for students whose families earn less than $75,000 — but don’t cover housing.
I’d imagine a lot of the students who applied to be an RA would have been more than happy with the current benefits. It would have saved them significant student loan debt. I know it would’ve helped me.
At the end of the day, these RAs are students first — it’s what makes them eligible for the job in the first place. And while they work for the government, they aren’t really government workers. The majority of these students work for one year and then move on.
Taking on additional costs for students who have a highly desirable, lucrative job doesn’t seem in the best interest of the school, taxpayers or the rest of the student body.
— Micky Horstman, Chicago
Bought by private equity
It is good to know that the Tribune Editorial Board is officially upset by the purchase of Walgreens, the Chicago area’s largest company by revenue, by a New York private equity firm (“A sad day dawns for Chicago’s own Walgreens,” March 7). Of course, the Tribune’s parent company, Tribune Publishing, is itself owned by Alden Global Capital, a New York-based hedge fund. The pot, the kettle, the goose, the gander.
Given the radical deregulation of big business, including the unwinding of the anti-monopoly policies that were pursued under President Joe Biden, we will see much more of this.
The world we live in now, I guess.
— Mac Brachman, Chicago
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