Coleen Orr presses the brim on customer Ellen Hanson’s hat at Cowboy Up Hatters on Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024, near Welby, Colorado. Orr’s hats are made of either 100% rabbit fur, 100% beaver fur or half of each kind of fur. The Denver Fur Ban is a succinct title for a ballot measure. But opponents of the November initiative say its effects will be anything but simple, and they prefer to wrangle with specifics when they make their points.
Olivia Hammond, the communications lead for both the Denver Fur Ban and its companion measure on this fall’s ballot,, emphasizes that the fur ban aims to end what she describes as the cruel and unnecessary practices of farms that raise animals specifically to harvest their fur. That campaign has enlisted people including House and Paul Andrews, the president and CEO of the National Western Stock Show,against the potential impacts. According to Andrews, those effects include threatening the livelihoods of many vendors at the Stock Show each January and, by extension, undermining the financial sustainability of the event itself.
Using century-old equipment and traditional techniques, Orr said her rabbit and beaver felt hats are high quality, lasting decades. She noted that rabbit felts are byproducts of the European meat market. “It’s a difficult analysis to do. It really threatens the No. 1 category in our store, which is the sale of flies,” he said.It’s official: Denverites will vote on largest dedicated sales tax in city history in November