Dear Editor,

Contrary to the claims of the restaurant caught selling foie gras in violation of California's ban, foie gras production is as cruel as factory farming gets.

Birds raised for foie gras are force-fed several pounds of food every day via a pneumatic tube that is rammed down their throats, a process that former state Senator John Burton describes as "doing the equivalent of waterboarding."

Force-feeding causes birds' livers to expand as much as 10 times their normal size, resulting in a painful disease called hepatic steatosis. The enlarged livers are about the size of a small football and put pressure on the birds' other internal organs, including the lungs, impairing the birds' ability to breathe. The massive livers also displace the birds' legs, making it difficult for them to walk.

Force-feeding birds has been denounced by poultry experts worldwide, which is why foie gras production has been banned in more than a dozen countries, including Israel, the UK, Germany, Poland, and Sweden.

California was right to follow suit. Banning force-feeding was the decent thing to do, the only the logical extension of efforts to ban battery cages, gestation and veal crates, shark-finning, and other forms of egregious cruelty to animals.

Alisa Mullins

PETA Foundation

This letter is to thank Supervisor Antonovich for citing all those stores that were violating the law and were ripping people off , what he did should be done more often because it will happen again , but he should also go after the illegal vendors selling cooked food , they do it where ever they want and no one cares , its illegal to sell food without a permit , or a license , and its being done all over the city , I know it's a full time job , but it needs to be addressed.

Joe Pinoy Lozano

Mission Hills