02:29 PM PDT on Wednesday, April 5, 2006

By KRISTINA BRENNEMAN, kgw.com Staff

The owners of a beleaguered downtown fur store appealed to city commissioners Wednesday to enforce the law that would keep its protesters at bay.

KGW photo

Linda and Gregg Schumacher inside their downtown Portland fur store.

Linda Schumacher said protecting a downtown business is not just a Schumacher Fur Co. issue, but one for every business and citizen downtown.

"All we have asked is the law be enforced," she said. "I wish you could have been there the last 21 Saturdays, people pounding on the window, yelling at us ... You do not know what has gone on."

But Linda Schumacher balked at entering mediation with the group leading the protests, In Defense of Animals, asking commissioners: "How do you negotiate with someone who want to shut your business down, burn down your house?"

She claimed the property owners of their 811 S.W. Morrison St. location, Thomas Moyer Theatres, are threatening eviction, and they have been unable to conduct business with the protests, signs and stalking of employees.

The city mediation, suggested by Mayor Tom Potter, follows escalating tension between the Schumacher Fur Co. and the protesters. Commissioners are not expected to make additional recommendations on the controversial issue for another week.

Each side has claimed the other has tried to harass, threaten and even taunt one another. The Portland Police Bureau have suggested the store modify its hours, glaze its windows and move furs further inside the store.

Others have suggested the fur store, which moved to the more prominent location five months ago, relocate to a boutique mall like Bridgeport.

"It would be safer for them to move into a controlled mall," like Lloyd Center, said Commissioner Randy Leonard. "My primary concern is the safety of everybody."

In response, In Defense of Animals wrote in a letter to City Council that said: “By and large, the majority of the animal advocates present have been peaceful… respectful and well within the law.”

Members of the group did not speak at Wednesday's hearing because they had not signed up beforehand.

Linda Schumacher disagreed that the protesters had been peaceful, saying the group has vandalized their property by throwing red paint on the store. She said the protesters have also yelled death threats and warned they would burn down their home.

“We want to be able to run our business peacefully,” she said.

Animal Rights Activist Matt Rossell, who has also protested OHSU’s research on monkeys, said the Schumacher security guard has threatened to “break your arms and legs.”

The Schumachers inflamed things further when they displayed a poster in their store’s front window that read, “All protesters should be beaten, strangled, skinned alive and anally electrocuted.”

Leonard, who’d been approached by a friend of the Schumachers to help, determined there was no way to reduce the hostilities after seeing the store’s sign.

“These folks seem to like the protests, they like the attention,” Leonard said.

Linda Schumacher said they only hung the posters for an hour and a half before "protesters barged in our doors and grabbed the posters out of the window."

Gregg Schumacher denied they like the publicity and said he provided police with a video of protesters splashing red paint in the store, trespassing and intimidating employees and customers.

Police have arrested three activists.