Judge Refuses to Block California Shark Fin Ban

By Jeff | Wednesday, January 9, 2013 | 3 Comments

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U.S. District judge Phyllis Hamilton refused to block the enforcement of California’s ban on the sale of shark fins, rejecting charges that the law is discriminatory against Chinese Americans. Two organizations, Asian Americans for Political Advancement and the San Francisco Chinatown Neighborhood Association, had asked for enforcement to halt. Said Judge Hamilton:

“Plaintiffs have provided no evidence that the law was enacted for the purpose of discriminating against Chinese Americans. Plaintiff’s own evidence shows that only a small percent of Chinese Americans eat shark fin soup regularly, and that approximately half of Chinese Americans actually support the Shark Fin Law.”

Enforcement of the ban is scheduled to begin July 2013. According to court documents, some restaurants estimate the loss of income in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

photo credit: avlxyz via photopin cc

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DiscriminationEnvironmentFood

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Ed209

Unfortunately
Toronto had lost against their fight against passing of this
discriminatory law. Perhaps it was partly to do with pressure from
unintelligent animal rights activists, some laziness or cultural ignorance on the law
makers part too. IMO this is a matter of regulating fishing practices and illegal fining with some dock inspection and heavy fines. Apparently too much work for Canadians (ironically would create more jobs too)

It is not right to incriminalize groups of people on the
food they eat, especially since it is part of their cultural delicacy
food. I’m disapointed in Canadians law and policy making as a suposedly ‘Multicultural society’
pandora

I would agree with you if shark fin soup was a necessary staple akin to Eskimo subsistence with whaling. However the Chinese tradition with shark fin soup is mainly to flaunt your wealth. It’s a luxury item that has no nutritional value and no one needs to eat it to survive. The shark is the one that needs it most. Same goes for foie gras.

Not all traditions are good. During the Qing dynasty, the Manchus tried (unsuccessfully) to ban footbinding, the Westerners attacked it, and even the Japanese attempted to ban the practice in Taiwan. One could use your argument that those nosy foreigners banning footbinding were being discriminatory and culturally ignorant towards the ethnic Chinese. How dare they!

Of course, prohibition never works. The best course of action would be to educate people on the truth about shark finning. Plus, there are so many other better things to eat. Businesses can still make their fortunes on baoyu and/or vegan shark fin instead right?
tonkotsu

In addition to that, eating shark fin soup is a trend that is going away due to the younger generation (of asians in asia) not caring much anymore. True that it’s sort of “death of a culture” somewhere in there, but times are changing.

What won’t change though? demand for this soup. You have hundreds of thousands of newly minted chinese millionaires in mainland china that still think lv bags, ferraris and shark fin soup are cool…… poor uneducated bastards.

8 Asians