The Denver Fur Ban is a succinct title for a ballot measure. But opponents of the November initiative say its effects will be anything but simple, and they prefer to wrangle with specifics when they make their points.
Initiated Ordinance 308 — which seeks to prohibit the manufacturing, sale, trade and display of select fur products — would have a raft of consequences that go beyond prohibiting retailers in the Mile High City from selling fox and raccoon fur coats, those opponents say.
It also could cut into the inventory at fly-fishing shops, people in the angling business say. It could upend the market for custom hat makers who are keeping Denver’s dusty old cow town traditions alive.
The measure could even make it more difficult for people with Indigenous ancestry to purchase fur products that are part of their cultural heritage. That, despite a specific carveout in the proposed ordinance’s language that would allow members of federally recognized Native American tribes to purchase products for tribal, cultural and spiritual purposes, opponents say.
“I think the exemption that whoever wrote was very specific and very narrow. And I think it was written without a clear understanding that across the United States, a majority of American Indians are self-identified — and not officially enrolled with any federally recognized tribes,” said Ernest House Jr., the former director executive director of the Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs. He’s a member of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe.
“As an enrolled member of a federally recognized American Indian tribe in Colorado, I would have no problem,” he said. “But my children are not enrolled.”
Olivia Hammond, the communications lead for both the Denver Fur Ban and its companion measure on this fall’s ballot, the Denver Slaughterhouse Ban, emphasizes that the fur ban aims to end what she describes as the cruel and unnecessary practices of farms that raise animals specifically to harvest their fur.
Animals are kept in small cages, she said, and slaughtered in inhumane ways to preserve their fur so that it can be turned into products. But that process can easily be replaced with a host of alternatives that are kinder both to animals and the environment, she said.
“We really feel like this measure is just an important step to outlawing a cruel and outdated practice, which is killing animals solely to wear their fur,” Hammond said in an interview Friday.
Measure’s backers point to alternatives
Hammond and her organization, the nonprofit animal rights group Pro-Animal Future, cite statistics from the international advocacy group Fur Free Alliance showing that 95% of all fur sold globally comes from factory farms where animals are killed just for their fur. The alliance, on its website, also points to a 2020 report from a public research organization that found that only one out of four Americans support the practice of killing animals for their fur.
She noted that Denver’s initiative, which follows a similar measure that narrowly passed in Boulder in 2021, includes exemptions for animal fur or pelts preserved through taxidermy. It exempts sheared fibers like wool as well as sheepskin, leather and cowhide, which are byproducts of the meat industry.
“Many voters we talked to are shocked this is even allowed. This type of cruelty is completely unnecessary,” Hammond said of fur sales in an age of technology-enabled alternatives. “The best our opposition can muster is to complain about cowboy hats, of which a small percentage would even be affected.”
Hammond’s reference to cowboy hats jabs at the Ordinance 308 opposition campaign, which has dubbed itself Hands off My Hat.
That campaign has enlisted people including House and Paul Andrews, the president and CEO of the National Western Stock Show, to speak out against the potential impacts. According to Andrews, those effects include threatening the livelihoods of many vendors at the Stock Show each January and, by extension, undermining the financial sustainability of the event itself.
Coleen Orr doesn’t sell her custom hats at the Stock Show. She doesn’t need to. The workshop for her business, Cowboy Up Hatters, is in unincorporated Adams County, close enough to the National Western Center campus for customers to come visit her.
Orr, 55, has more than three decades of experience making custom felt and straw fedoras, bowlers, top hats and, yes, cowboy hats.
She caught wind of the Boulder fur ban too late to weigh in, but she is speaking out against the proposed Denver ban. It might not impact her workshop, but it could hurt her business in other ways. Hammond confirmed that online orders and shipments into Denver would be prohibited under the ban, should it pass.
Using century-old equipment and traditional techniques, Orr said her rabbit and beaver felt hats are high quality, lasting decades. She noted that rabbit felts are byproducts of the European meat market.
As for beavers, she said they can be varmints that damage trees and ecosystems if their populations aren’t kept in check. It is legal to hunt beavers in Colorado.
“We love the animals, too. I’m not going to take the last of them by any means,” Orr said in defending her industry. “Plastic and heads do not go well together. Felt breathes, and it’s durable and dissolves down into the earth again when we’re done with it.”
Are certain fish flies at risk?
Inside Denver city limits, Anglers All fly shop owner Chris Keeley estimated that more than half of his inventory of flies featured animal fibers. While synthetic fibers are used in many products these days, he said, elk hair and deer hair remain common components in many of the flies for sale at his store at 1303 E. Sixth Ave.
As of last month, it was not clear to him what the Denver fur ban’s passage would mean for his business, but there was a risk it could be extremely damaging, he said.
“It’s a difficult analysis to do. It really threatens the No. 1 category in our store, which is the sale of flies,” he said.
Keeley’s understanding is that any impacts to shops like his would be unintended consequences of the fur ban.
Hammond confirmed that Pro-Animal Future reached out to Keeley and others in the fly-fishing industry with an offer to exempt their businesses from the ban.
But the proposed ordinance language on file with the Denver Clerk and Recorder’s office makes no mention of fly-fishing. Should the measure pass, flies that contain animal fibers could become illegal in Denver on July 1, 2025, just like coats, handbags, hats, wall hangings, jewelry, rugs and other products made partially or entirely of fur, as explicitly identified in the ordinance language.
The Denver City Council can amend an initiated ordinance approved by voters, but only six months after its passage — and with the supermajority support of at least nine of the 13 members. Pro-Animal Future would not oppose fly-fishing enthusiasts if they sought an exemption from the council, Hammond said.
But such uncertainty has unnerved the measure’s critics.
“What scares us,” Keeley said, “is there are no guarantees after the fact.”
Stay up-to-date with Colorado Politics by signing up for our weekly newsletter, The Spot.
