Au Revoir, Foie Gras: Amazon To Stop Selling Duck Liver In Calif

LOS ANGELES, CA — Six years after Californians enacted a state law banning force-fed foie gras, Amazon has agreed to stop shipping it to customers in the Golden State. The online retail giant also agreed to pay $100,000 under a consumer protection settlement reached with the district attorney's offices of Los Angeles, Monterey and Santa Clara counties, it was announced Friday.

Efforts to stop the sale of fois gras, which involved force-feeding ducks and geese to cause them to have fatty livers, has been an epic political, legal and cultural battle in California going back more than 15 years. Animal rights groups decry the practice as inhumane, but fans of the delicacy and the businesses that sell it are locked in a fierce legal battle to overturn the 2012 ban. The U.S. Supreme Court's deciding whether to review the matter.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey said the $100,000 settlement, which was approved by a judge on Thursday, will go toward civil penalties, investigative costs and restitution to a state trust fund used to enforce consumer protection laws stemming from allegations of unlawful sales of foie gras.

A state law approved in 2004 and enacted in 2012 banned the sale of foie gras in California, but it was challenged in Los Angeles federal court by an association of foie gras producers in New York and Canada, along with a Hermosa Beach restaurant operator, who argued that the measure was vaguely written and interfered with state commerce.

Upon being contacted by prosecutors about the sale of foie gras to customers in California, Amazon took immediate steps to stop such sales and continued to block sales of foie gras during the lengthy appellate process, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office.

City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report: A worker uses the force feeding machine to feed ducks at Hudson Valley Foie Gras August 17, 2006 (Photo by Stephen Chernin/Getty Images)