Selling the delicacy used in a popular soup is being phased out. Restaurants can no longer serve the soup, but businesses can sell shark fins directly to consumers through the end of June as long as the fins were already in stock before the beginning of last year.
"They can sell it to the ultimate consumer, yet they cannot continue to sell to a business because it comes down to that possession. That business needed to be in possession of that shark fin prior to January 1st 2012," explained Lt. Jennifer Ikemoto with the California Fish and Wildlife Department.
The Chinatown Neighborhood Association lost a legal challenge to the new law in January.
