The Chicago City Council, in its infinite wisdom and benevolence, has banned the sale of foie gras, arguing that some producers of the delicacy force-feed the geese from which the liver pate is produced, which the Chi solons say is painful and inhumane.

Chicago mayor Richard Daley opposed the ordinance but it went into effect anyway. The New York Times reports that many people in the city are embarrassed and angered by the law:

On Tuesday, this city’s lawbreakers were serving foie gras.

The illicit substance could be spotted in places it was rarely seen when it was legal: buried in Chicago’s famed deep-dish pizza, in soul food on the South Side, beside beef downtown.

In one of the more unlikely (and opulent) demonstrations of civil disobedience, a handful of restaurants here that never carry foie gras, the fattened livers of ducks and geese, featured it on the very day that Chicago became the first city in the nation to outlaw sale of the delicacy.

“This ban is embarrassing Chicago,” said Grant DePorter of Harry Caray’s Restaurant, which dreamed up an appetizer of pan-seared foie gras and scallops ($14.95) and a Vesuvio-style entree pairing foie gras and tenderloin ($33.95) just to buck the new ordinance. “We really don’t think the City Council should decide what Chicagoans eat. What’s next? Some other city outlaws brussels sprouts? Another outlaws chicken? Another, green beans?”

The "offense" is subject to fines of $250 to $500, though there remains some question about how aggressively the city will enforce it. The alderman who sponsored the ban, Joe Moore, has been the subject of praise from animal rights activists and derision from restaurateurs, gourmands, and people generally concerned about erosions of individual liberty in the City of Big [Government Looking Over Your] Shoulders.

The law has already induced mockery from outside the city, according to a Chicago Tribune story:

Allen Sternweiller, executive chef and co-owner of Allen’s New American Cafe, whose company is a plaintiff in the restaurant association’s lawsuit, said Chicago is getting an unwanted reputation based on its proposals regarding trans fat and foie gras.

"Some of my colleagues (around the country) call Chicago ‘The Nanny City,’" Sternweiller said.

The prospect of foie gras speakeasies and gang wars over rights to distribute the delicacy is amusingly farfetched, but the increasing number of things being banned by the Nanny City and other places makes a greater flouting of the laws a certainty at some point.