Hummers, Pâté Get Activists' Goose
California activists are getting a rise out of fans of ducks and trucks.
Public officials, firefighters and Hummer fans rallied outside an auto dealership in West Covina to denounce the unidentified vandals who did $1 million in damage as an environmental protest.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reports officials in Sonoma are contending with an animal rights war that has erupted in the sleepy wine-country city over foie gras, a staple of haute cuisine that some see as a delicacy and others consider a symbol of animal cruelty. —
Critics, including the American Humane Society, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and underground organizations such as the Animal Liberation Front, say producing foie gras involves "animal torture."
About 25 members of a Southern California Hummer fan club joined officials outside Clippinger Chevrolet for Sunday's rally. They toured the area where fires early Friday gutted a parts warehouse and destroyed 20 Hummer H2s. Another 20 Hummers and several Chevrolet Tahoes were significantly damaged by fire and spray-painting.
"We don't disagree with the need to improve fuel efficiency," said West Covina City Councilman Mike Miller. "But vandalism doesn't get the message across."
Three other dealers and at least four privately owned vehicles in the area also were damaged during the vandalism spree.
Miller said council members planned to meet with local auto dealers this week to discuss ways to improve security.
"We are concerned," said Josh Sage, a sales manager at Huntington Beach Chrysler Jeep and Hummer. The dealership moved its Hummers to a back lot and hired an extra security guard to patrol all night, he said.
The Earth Liberation Front, a loose association of militant environmentalists that has claimed responsibility for other acts of arson and vandalism, said in an unsigned e-mail Friday that the incidents were "ELF actions" but added it had not be in contact with those responsible.
Slogans such as "Fat, Lazy Americans" and "I (heart) pollution" were painted on vehicles.
Over the last month, animal rights advocates who object to the methods used to produce foie gras — the fattened liver of a force-fed duck or goose — have vandalized two homes, including one owned by well-known San Francisco chef Laurent Manrique, and have caused a flood in a 19th century adobe building, the oldest commercial structure in Sonoma.
The incidents, the Times reports, are being investigated by law enforcement officials in Sonoma, Marin and Napa counties and by the FBI. At issue is Sonoma Saveurs, a yet-to-open bistro in the adobe building that plans to offer, among many other items, foie gras — French for "fat liver." —
The Web site of Bite Back, an animal rights magazine that printed two of the restaurant partners' home addresses, posted statements — "received anonymously" — attributing the vandalism at the homes to "concerned citizens" and the flooding to "individuals horrified at the torture of ducks."
One statement says: "We cannot let this restaurant open." — Sonoma Police Chief John Gurney, who described the attacks as a "sophisticated campaign of domestic terrorism," said: "They're trying to impose their beliefs on others through the use of force, fear and intimidation."
Gurney said he believes that all three attacks were committed by the same people. "There are enough similarities for us to know that they are all related," he said.