UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES… OR ARE THEY? Denver fur ban initiative targets fashion industry, but it’s got fly-fishers and cowboy hat makers worried too.

Initiated Ordinance 308 — which seeks to prohibit the manufacturing, sale, trade and display of select fur products — would have a raft of consequences that go beyond prohibiting retailers in the Mile High City from selling fox and raccoon fur coats, those opponents say.

It also could cut into the inventory at fly-fishing shops, people in the angling business say. It could upend the market for custom hat makers who are keeping Denver’s dusty old cow town traditions alive.

The measure could even make it more difficult for people with Indigenous ancestry to purchase fur products that are part of their cultural heritage. That, despite a specific carveout in the proposed ordinance’s language that would allow members of federally recognized Native American tribes to purchase products for tribal, cultural and spiritual purposes, opponents say.

“I think the exemption that whoever wrote was very specific and very narrow. And I think it was written without a clear understanding that across the United States, a majority of American Indians are self-identified — and not officially enrolled with any federally recognized tribes,” said Ernest House Jr., the former director executive director of the Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs. He’s a member of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe.

It isn’t like Denver has a Big Fur problem and fur sellers will just move out to the suburbs. Initiated Ordinance 308 looks like yet another one of those vanity law projects that won’t change much but will inconvenience a few people the anti-fur people don’t care about.