On top of a fresh victory (soon to be appealed), animal lovers have good cause to celebrate.
In the wake of an amazing Fur-Free Friday demonstration in downtown Portland, Schumacher Furs has announced that, after 112 years of business in the area, it will pull out of the city's core and may leave Portland altogether. Of course, this implies they will attempt to re-launch elsewhere, presumably somewhere a little less progressive, but that ruse will only work until no place is a comfortable haven for fur peddlers.
Finding a new place to call home might prove challenging, as Shumacher doesn't exactly make one feel the warm fuzzies. Between the sign posted on the inside of his store window (at left) to his insistence that the new "Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act," signed by President Bush on Monday, be enforced against the picketers, the man who trafficks in animals' pelts has got a chip on his shoulder. I guess one reason he's leaving the city is what he sees as lack of support from the police department. But they've assigned an officer to every weekly protest and they've even made the occasional arrest! Rather, he calls the activists terrorists. Having participated in the protest for a few hours during my October Portland visit, I can personally assure you that there was no trace of terrorism going on anywhere out front of the place (otherwise I'm sure a protester would have been arrested by the one of police officers hanging out nearby every Saturday). I tell you what I did witness, though. Schumacher himself got fairly confrontational with a guy in the protest group who appeared to be autistic and was thus a little more vocal than most of the other protesters, and this intimidation came from the same guy who claims in the story, "I do not feel safe coming in my own store." He's obviously just jumping on the AETA bandwagon, but even that train might leave town.
I just read a new story about a federal judge constraining George W. Bush's ability to designate groups as terrorists. One would hope this refers to the AETA, which he signed into law yesterday, but -- the courts taking as long as they do to catch up sometimes -- the decision comes as a rebuke for his post-September 11, 2001 executive order that blocked all the assets of groups or individuals he named as "specially designated global terrorists" after the World Trade Center buildings were destroyed.
The judge argued the order was unconstitutionally vague, according to the ruling released Tuesday. I will hold out hope that this judge, or at least one cut from the same cloth, will knock down the AETA. It is just as vaguely worded, and certainly threatens our constitutional freedoms. Los Angeles-based Last Chance for Animals has vowed to fight the law.
Speaking of LCA and fur in the same post, this would be a good time to post one of the photos sent to me today by fellow activist Jan Smith, who participated in the organizations's Fur-Free Friday protest in Los Angeles. I had expressed my hopes that the L.A. event would have a great turn out, and I'm happy to say that I wasn't disappointed:
Activists who participate in demonstrations and protests are having a peaceful and meaningful impact, so give yourselves a pat on the back, and keep up the good work!UPDATE: More on this story in Wednesday's The Oregonian (further proof of Schumacher's prickliness):
"We're leaving downtown Portland because we feel that it's losing its appeal for people to shop in" said Schumacher, 51, rattling off a list of what he called his customers' complaints. "The panhandling, the musicians on the street, the urination in the parking garages. Yes, the protests. But the whole place is not conducive to running a retail operation."Heh-heh. From the City Commissioner, no less. Schumacher clearly has issues of his own devising.
Officials from City Hall to the Portland Business Alliance, while making it clear they're sad to see downtown lose any merchant, particularly such a longtime institution, called Schumacher's claims, in effect, bunk.
They pointed to recent commitments by Macy's and Nordstrom to revitalize their downtown stores. More broadly, Schumacher's comments stand in stark contrast to what many view as a thriving downtown, from the recent maturing of the Pearl District to the start of a projected $2 billion South Waterfront district.
City Commissioner Randy Leonard, who said he'd offered to help Schumacher and his wife, Linda, after the protests started last November, recalled how quickly he came to regret the move.
"I honestly had never been involved in anything in which I felt like the folks I was trying to help did not want to be helped," Leonard said.
"The Schumachers carry at minimum -- at minimum -- equal responsibility for what happened outside their store," Leonard said. "I think the case could be made they did what they could to fan the flames at every opportunity."
