Foie Gras Will Be Banned in Washington, D.C. If Voters Approve Initiative

America’s foie gras wars rage on and the latest battleground is the capital.

This fall, Washington, D.C. voters will have the chance to ban the controversial delicacy made from the fattened livers of force-fed ducks and geese. The Board of Elections approved the measure called “Prohibiting the Force-Feeding of Birds Act of 2026,” to appear on the ballot, and as the formal title of Initiative 86 implies, the text of the measure is focused greatly how the process to create foie gras effects animal welfare.

“That force-feeding induces liver disease in the birds, which is both painful and often fatal, causing the animals significant injury and illness, including bacterial and fungal infections, malnourishment, and/or lameness,” reads one passage from the text of the measure.

The new initiative has been pushed by the group Pro-Animal Future, which gathered 45,000 signatures in around three months to get it considered for the ballot. The measure has some opponents in the restaurant world, though they may not be taking to the hustings en masse. “I don’t know a single chef who’s excited that foie gras is being banned,” Butterworth’s chef Bart Hutchins told Washingtonian magazine’s Jessica Sidman. “There’s a certain cowardice in the chef’s community that’s afraid to speak out about it. And there’s part of me that doesn’t blame them because the vitriol that I’ve gotten for it.”

The initiative, if passed, will make it illegal for retailers or restaurants to sell foie gras with fines ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 and possible loss of a business license. Perhaps drawing on the precedent set by court rulings in the fight over California’s foie gras ban, individuals will still be allowed to possess foie gras for their own consumption, so if a D.C. dweller brought some of the fatty liver home with them on a trip, they are within their right to eat it.

This is the latest attempt to ban foie gras around America, from the California prohibition mentioned above, which took nearly a decade to go into effect, to New York’s recent legal squabbles that are still not fully resolved. If this initiative is successful in November, the D.C. ban will take effect July 1, 2027, but don’t be surprised if this gets caught up in the courts like previous foie gras battles have.