The News
All the news, all the time.
3 January
2030
Press release
California passes ban on selling and trading animal products: Boom in illicit underground meat restaurants
The state-wide Californian raid of illegal meat restaurants, commonly known as “meat-ups”, as well as importers of animal flesh for human consumption, has raised criticism in the US as well as abroad.
“We uphold that a total ban of meat is not the way to go,” said Autumn Peltier, prime minister of Canada. “We absolutely need to radically cut back on the consumption of meat, but my programme has been one of incentives, taxes and leading by example. A ban always leads to the trade and consumption going underground as well as profiteering.”
A total of 59 restaurants were raided on Friday night, and over 150 people were arrested, proprietors and staff alike. This publication has the names of actors, athletes and politicians who were frequenting these establishments Friday last. We choose not to publish them, as we feel that might encourage some of the loudest protestors of the ban. Police had been given instructions to let the customers go, and to only arrest the staff, as it is not illegal to eat meat, only to produce, smuggle or sell it.
During the last era of prohibition, in the 1930s, the illegal speakeasies are said to have been elegant places where the demi-monde gathered to play games, dine and dance. But this reporter accompanied a raid to a small house in West Covina where the air was heavy with the greasy smell of fried steaks and burgers. On the tables were paper plates, plastic cutlery and bottles of beer and wine. A man in his mid-sixties, presumably the proprietor, tried to protest that this was a gathering of family members, not a restaurant, and that eating meat was not a crime. This was an obvious falsehood, as the people gathered, approximately 24 people of all ages and ethnicities but predominantly male, could not, when pressed, give satisfactory explanations of how they were in fact related. “We’re cousins” did not impress the detective in charge.
“But we are not so much after the restaurants, or ‘meat-easies’,” said Governor Christina Schwarzenegger. “The bigger issue is the illegal import of beef and pork from other states.”
