Let us begin with the obvious. Beverly Hills, California, is not Minsk. Or even Donegal.
Beverly Hills is warm, dotted with palm trees on wide boulevards and sunny all year round. At Christmas, department stores feature a Santa Claus wearing red shorts.
But fashion is fashion and chic is chic is chic, as Gertrude Stein might have said, so temperature is no barrier to those women who wrap themselves in mink coats on balmy nights.
Sales of furs, everything from belts to full length mink coats, total about $20 million a year in Beverly Hills. It is said that Beverly Hills is the fur capital of the West.
What happened in this city of 33,000 people last month has set shivers down the spines of furriers.
The city council has called for a special election on May 11th for voters to consider a new law. The law, proposed by an animal rights group that presented the council with a petition singed by 3,300 residents, would force stores to place the following tag - about the size of a credit card - on all fur items: "Consumer notice: This product is made with fur from animals that may have been killed by electrocution, gassing, neck breaking, poisoning, clubbing, stomping or drowning and may have been trapped in steel-jawed leg-hold traps." Hardly the kind of message that will help move that dyed blue beaver biker jacket - a bargain at $2,500 (about £1,700) - off the rack at Somper Furs, one of he oldest fur shops in the city.
Furriers are declaring the proposal unfair. "Does the waiter tell you how the chicken got its head cut off?" asked one.
Others are less Socratic in their approach. Some furry critters, such as beavers, are just downright pests and would do damage in the wild if their numbers were not controlled.
None of that matters to people like Barbara Colvin, a fur fan who leans toward foxes. "My attitude is, they were already dead before they put the coat together," she told the Los Angeles Times. "I just see it and think, I've got to have that."
The fight promises to be a humdinger. Celebrities who signed the petition include Jack Lemmon, hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and talk show host Jay Leno.