New York City can ban restaurants from serving a staple of French cuisine that animal welfare activists have long criticized as being produced under cruel and inhumane conditions, according to a Thursday ruling from the state Supreme Court.
The state cannot prevent the city from enforcing a law passed more than six years ago that barred restaurants from serving foie gras, the state Supreme Court’s Appellate Division said. Foie gras is a French dish made from the livers of ducks and geese, first force-fed and fattened up by farmers, then slaughtered. Foie gras is French for “fatty liver.”
Animal activists have long assailed the practice as cruel. Restaurants that serve the dish will adjust, those in the industry say.
In 2019, New York City enacted a law preventing the sale of foie gras and other “force-fed” foods, Newsday previously reported. The law described the practice behind foie gras as forcing an animal to “consume large quantities of grain and fat using a pipe that is inserted down the esophagus.”
The city faced legal opposition to enforcing the law in 2022 just before it was set to take effect. Two upstate Sullivan County farms — La Belle Farm and Hudson Valley Foie Gras — sued the city and secured a temporary injunction that allowed diners to keep ordering it in Manhattan, attorney Bryan Pease told Newsday in a Thursday telephone interview. Pease has represented Voters For Animal Rights, one of many nonprofits that advocated for the city’s initial ban of the dish.
Following Thursday’s ruling, the court can lift the injunction the upstate farms secured, clearing the path for city enforcement after years of opposition, Pease said. The state can also appeal the ruling, delaying enforcement.
Thursday’s ruling is a “historic victory for animals,” Allie Taylor, the founder of Voters For Animal Rights, said in a statement.
“This is a momentous step forward in creating a kinder, more humane world and it proves that meaningful change is possible when people refuse to accept cruelty as the status quo,” Taylor added.
While she does not have any current plans to advocate for a Long Island or statewide ban, Taylor said that remains a goal.
“I think we will have our hands full here trying to get enforcement right in New York City,” Taylor told Newsday in a telephone interview. “But absolutely we would support a ban of foie gras all throughout New York State.”
Long Islanders can order foie gras in restaurants throughout Nassau and Suffolk counties, including at Brasserie by Chef Aless in Massapequa, Lola in Great Neck and The 1770 House in East Hampton. The dish and will remain available anywhere else but the city statewide.
“Foie gras is popular here,” chef Aless Mac Carthy, who owns Brasserie by Chef Aless, told Newsday in a telephone interview. However, should droves of customers oppose the item, or if a ban ever takes effect on Long Island, she would adapt, she said.
“In the restaurant business, we are here to serve our customers,” Mac Carthy said. “So whatever aligns with the customers is how we align ourselves.”
To Mac Carthy, whose family hails from Bordeaux in the southwest region of France, force feeding geese to make foie gras is a centuries-old “culturally acceptable” practice, she said.
“I understand the animals are not treated properly,” Mac Carthy said. “But it’s a cultural thing.”
Nicholas Grasso covers breaking news for Newsday. A Long Island native, he previously worked at several community newspapers and lifestyle magazines based on the East End.
Dining and Cooking