Archives for the 'Banned' Category
Europe Lifts ‘Wonky’ Ban on ‘Bonkers’ Regs (or is it ‘Bonkers’ Ban on ‘Wonky’ Regs?)
British grocers and tabloids helped lead the charge to lift a decades-old European Commission ban on imperfect-looking foods, according to The Sun.
Sainbury’s spokeswoman Lucy Maclennan said: “We are delighted to have played a part in winning the wonky veg war against these bonkers EU regulations.”
Tesco spokesman Adam Fisher said: “It’s not before time. We welcome this move.”
And last night it was predicted the change could see some prices fall by 40 PER CENT.
More here. We here at Crispy let you know about plans to lift the ban last June.
DC Council’s Jim Graham Wants No One to Have a Piece of the Pie
DC councilman Jim Graham is one of the DC area’s most horrific left-wing moralists. Since it would be difficult to hide my contempt for him, I won’t.
I detest Jim Graham. He is a restaurant hater. He was instrumental in passing DC’s smoking ban, and since then has opposed such evils as the sale of single beers. Yet voters in his ward continue to elect Graham.
I have a feeling that might now change. Graham’s latest anti-restaurant play is so outrageous and so out of touch with reality that Graham’s supporters will have to see the light. Right?
Why is Graham’s latest ban attempt so unconscionable? I’ll tell you why. Jim Graham wants to ban the sale of pizza slices. Says their sale spurs violence.
This could mean the end of the jumbo slice–which along with the half smoke is one of DC’s few culinary contributions to the world. But this is just the continuation of a pattern the council–especially Graham–has been evincing for several years. As former DCist editor Ryan Avent wrote of Graham and the council in 2007:
In the past year as well, Council members, and particularly Ward 1 representative Jim Graham, have acted swiftly to close down District businesses connected with crimes, even when it appears that there was little the business could have done to stop the criminal act. Increasingly, it seems that the Council’s first inclination when faced with a problem is to restrict choice.
DCist has more on the proposed pizza slice ban here, and Graham’s anti-business grandstanding here.
Tell Graham how you feel about his proposal either by email (jim@grahamwone.com) or phone (202.724.8181). Tell him Crispy sent you.
Texas trans fat blues
This is a bad week for consumer freedom in my native Texas (where, incidentally, I enjoyed two chicken fried steaks, barbecue lunches, a Tex-Mex feast, several bottles of Shiner, and Dublin Dr Pepper this weekend). The statewide smoking ban looks very close to passing and the Senate is considering a bill to ban trans fats from restaurants. The AP lists the exceptions included in the latter bill:
But, fearing a backlash from the sweet tooth lobby, the lawmakers provided an exemption for trans fats used to make cakes, pies and other bakery items.
“The icing exemption,” is what Democratic Sen. Eliot Shapleigh called the loophole, explaining that cake icing doesn’t stay put without the hydrogen pumped into the oil - the very process that makes trans fats unhealthy.
Other exemptions were provided for food served by grocery stores, fire departments and certain caterers, and the ban would be slowly phased in. Initially, it would impact only chain establishments. It would apply to all Texas restaurants by late 2011.
Another loophole - for nonprofit organizations - was inserted in part to ensure that corn dogs and other fried goodies served at rodeos and state fairs could still be cooked with trans fat.
And, of course, consumers could still by entire tubs of shortening at the grocery store if they’re in the mood. All of which shows the absurdity of this ban. If trans fats are a dangerous toxin, they shouldn’t be allowed at state fairs or catering events. But they’re not toxins. They’re just another food ingredient, and there’s no justification for forbidding restaurant chefs to use them when they’re readily available elsewhere.
If the Texas legislature insists on doing something about trans fats, it should follow the lead of San Francisco. The city allowed restaurants to apply for seals certifying them to be trans fat free, thus preserving choice and giving consumers the information they might wish to know. Unfortunately, that sensible idea was made irrelevant by California’s statewide ban.
A “notoriously cryptic and unobtrusive family of birds”
More from the Dept. of Eating Strange Beasties:
A rare quail from the Philippines was photographed for the first time before being sold as food at a poultry market, experts say.
Found only on the island of Luzon, Worcester’s buttonquail was known solely through drawings based on dated museum specimens collected several decades ago.
Scientists had suspected the species—listed as “data deficient” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s 2008 Red List—was extinct….However, the buttonquail is from a “notoriously cryptic and unobtrusive family of birds,” according to the nonprofit Birdlife International, so the species may survive undetected in other regions.
He did not add: “Also, they are delicious with a little cumin, so I sort of understand why you’d want to eat the last one.”
The whole thing is reminiscent of the pretty great/terrible 1990 Marlon Brando/Matthew Broderick movie The Freshman, which features a club of the ’80s ultra-wealthy organized around consuming the final specimens of endangered animals while wearing velvet mini dresses and black tie.
Clark Kellogg (Broderick): But it’s an endangered species!
Carmine Sabatini (Brando): Not any more. It’s in New Jersey, it’s fine.
Rent it today, and enjoy the next best thing to roasted endangered buttonquail.
Sardinian Maggot Cheese? Geschmackvoll!
When beer pong is outlawed…
A few years ago the busybodies at the Virginia ABC — some of the busiest busybodies in the country — decided to ban beer pong and other drinking games in county bars. Naturally people didn’t stop playing beer pong, they just played the game at home instead. This upsets some of the area’s more staid residents:
County Board members have directed staff to look into complaints that drinking games are getting out of hands.
Bluemont resident James Thorne said that, since the Virginia Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC) board banned drinking games (such as “beer pong”) from bars and eateries, they have gravitated toward outdoor areas, such as outside local homes.
“It affects our quality of life,” Thorne said of the resulting noise.
Thorne asked board members to consider an ordinance change that would give county police the ability to request that such drinking games be moved indoors.
Of course residents have a right not to be excessively disturbed by their neighbors. That’s what existing noise ordinances are for. A law specifically targeting drinking games would be superfluous and unfairly target young people, likely giving cops the power to shut down their parties without having to reasonably apply standard noise ordinances.
Stogie Guy Patrick Semmens is fighting the proposal at his new website, NoBoozeBan.org. Arlington residents should follow the issue there.
You say “tomato,” I say “foreign and evil!”
We’ve covered a lot of stupid bans here, but I don’t think any of them can match the absurdity of this one:
… the “foreign” kebab [...] is being kicked out of Italian cities as it becomes the target of a campaign against ethnic food, backed by the centre-right Government of Silvio Berlusconi.
The drive to make Italians eat Italian, which was described by the Left and leading chefs as gastronomic racism, began in the town of Lucca this week, where the council banned any new ethnic food outlets from opening within the ancient city walls.
Yesterday it spread to Lombardy and its regional capital, Milan, which is also run by the centre Right. The antiimmigrant Northern League party brought in the restrictions “to protect local specialities from the growing popularity of ethnic cuisines”.
From Bags to Riches
A representative wants to tax consumers in the Constitution State for using plastic bags:
Fawcett’s working concept, which has already been introduced in the environment committee of the state legislature, is to impose a fee of 5 cents for each plastic and paper bag used at retail checkout counters, creating a stream of revenue which could possibly be targeted to the state Department of Environmental Protection.
If such legislation is put into effect, Connecticut would be the first state in the nation to legislate a restriction on plastic and paper bags, said Fawcett.
Fawcett said that the recently approved ordinance banning the use of plastic bags in Westport “got the ball rolling” and “started a conversation” among state legislators who have been trying to come up with a restriction that would make sense on a statewide level.
On its face this seems well and good: It turns the hidden cost of plastic bags to a direct one that the consumer can then choose to pay or not. A 2007 report to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors (pdf) estimated that each consumer pays $18 a year in hidden costs for plastic bags. Folks like me who already use a canvas bag for their groceries would seemingly benefit far better by paying for overall cheaper groceries than we do now with the nickel rebate we sometimes — sometimes — receive at the checkout for bringing our own bags.
Except that’s not what’s happening here. Fawcett’s plan forces the store to penalize the consumer, then turn the money over to the state. That’s called a sales tax. Anyone using reusable bags still pays higher prices for groceries because the store still has to pay for plastic bags; they’re just channeling money from consumer to government. If anything, the hidden costs go up due to administration.
But let’s pretend this isn’t about developing new revenue streams to pay for corpulent budgets during the downturn. Let’s imagine this really is about the environment, about making citizens use fewer plastic bags. Perhaps the state will allow the store to keep the cost of the bag — say, three cents — and pass the remainder over to Auntie Rell. Still a sales tax but not as high. What about the practical issues? The clerk at a manned checkout line can simply ring up the number of bags you use. But what’s supposed to happen at the automated counters? Should an attendant stand there and add the bags to your total? Defeats the purpose of automation. Bar codes on the bags that you scan as you would a gallon of milk or a box of spaghetti? More hidden costs of implementation. Am I shoplifter fit for arrest and prosecution if I take an extra bag? Costs of enforcement.
Memo to Rep. Fawcett: Some of us already use reusable bags of our own volition; some stores (like IKEA) have ceased offering them in response to consumer demand. Free will is some crazy shizzle.
Bans snuff out more than cigarettes
One more post about smoking bans and then I’ll move to actual food. Or maybe drinks. But first, this:
Yet as wonderful as the beer is at the Horse Brass, its community revolves around something more: smoking. The bar is notorious among non-smokers for its tobacco haze and its brown walls and ceiling, which people swear were once white. For those who enjoy tobacco, the Horse Brass is a welcome sanctuary in a city where many businesses are already smoke-free. It’s easy to light a cigar, strike up a conversation, and make new friends. Unfortunately, I had only three months to feel at home here: The state legislature decreed that on January 1, 2009 all bars and restaurants in the State of Oregon had to become smoke-free.
That’s from my article at Doublethink today about my favorite bar in Portland and how its culture has been wiped out by the nanny statists in Salem and their brand new smoking ban. At a bar like the Horse Brass, you either get it or you don’t. The busybodies in the state legislature clearly don’t.
Don’t need no stinkin’ bans!
Chad Wilcox sends in a blog post noticing that bars and restaurants in Arlington, VA (where I lived for most of the past five years) are trending smokefree in the absence of legislation:
They said Arlington’s bars would never voluntarily go smoke-free … then Liberty Tavern did and places like Eleventh, Union Jacks, and Clarendon Grill soon followed.
They said sports bars would never go smoke-free … then Summers created a separate smoke-free bar, followed by Four Courts and Crystal City Sports Pub, and Thirsty Bernie’s opened entirely smoke-free.
Now Arlington’s best diner, Bob & Edith’s at Columbia Pike & S. Wayne St., is going 100% smoke-free.
Arlington makes an interesting test case. It’s one of the wealthiest, most liberal cities in the country, and residents would surely approve a smoking ban if they were allowed to. Fortunately they’re restrained by Virginia law that forbids local anti-smoking ordinances to exceed the state’s own rules. Every year a statewide ban is introduced in the senate and immediately shot down by the tobacco-friendly house.
The fact that popular bars and established restaurants are voluntarily choosing to restrict smoking shows that ban opponents have been right all along: given demand for smokefree environments, profit-seeking business owners will eventually provide them, if not as immediately as a legislative ban would. And as someone who generally prefers bars with clean air, I think that’s fantastic — as long as dive bars like Jay’s or the backroom cigar lounge at EatBar remain free to set their own policies too.
The same has been true in my new home of Portland, OR, another city one might have expected to institute a smoking ban long ago. Even before the statewide ban went into effect last week I noticed there were far more smokefree bars here than in other places I’ve lived. I checked the directory at SmokeFreeOregon.com and the site listed more than 400 establishments within the city limits. That was hardly a lack of choice for non-smokers.
At best, one could make the case for nudging businesses to go smokefree with one-time tax breaks to speed up adoption of the policy. Otherwise, leave people free to associate on their own terms and they’ll eventually figure out ways to accommodate each other. There’s no need for coercion.
Response to comments 1/10/09: Several people note in the comments that this trend has been accelerated by bans in other jurisdictions changing people’s expectations. I have no doubt that this is true. But that makes the case for a ban in Virginia weaker, not stronger. And the same is true for DC. Now that residents have had several years of smokefree bars, the city should lift the ban; there will be many fewer bars that revert to allowing smoking than there were prior to it.
The main point to take away from this is that comprehensive smoking bans are overkill. Softer policies can encourage the development of smokefree markets while still respecting the rights of business owners and smokers, who happen to be people too.
For another post about why I think that demand for smokefree bars is politically overstated, see here.
The Fruit(cake)s of Our Labors
Mr. Melton, I disapprove of what you bake, but I will defend to the death your right to bake (and sell) it.*
Shasta County health officials are cracking down on an 86-year-old disabled World War II veteran who has been selling homemade fruitcakes for more than a decade.
The Department of Environmental Health cites an obscure law banning food businesses in private homes.
Jack Melton of Redding gave away many of his pecan-filled fruitcakes. But health officials saw a small handmade window sign offering some for sale.
Health specialist Fern Hastings says Melton must use a commercial bakery that has passed a health inspection even if he gives his cakes to the public.
Melton says the 10- to 14-dozen fruitcakes he sold each year helped supplement his Social Security benefits.
* Fun fact: The orginial formulation of the phrase was not really Voltaire’s, but a snappier paraphrase of his thoughts by his biographer Evelyn Beatrice Hall.
An Oregon smoking ban prediction
I’m supposed to be in Houston right now. Yesterday my bags were packed and, despite being skeptical that my plane home would depart on time, I trudged my luggage through the freshly fallen snow to the train that would take me to the airport. The train wasn’t running. I checked my phone and now neither was my flight. Thirty minutes on hold with Southwest booked me a new ticket on the 24th and three more days in a paralyzed city.
This is all mildly inconvenient for me, but it’s hell for people in the service industry. December is a vital month for them. Because of the record snowfall — the highest for a Portland December since 1968 — my bartender friends are being told not to come into work. Many places aren’t opening at all. Companies are canceling their Christmas party reservations, taking with them all the revenue they’d promised. Combine this with the national recession and 2008 is turning out to be a glum year for area bars and restaurants.
What does this have to do with smoking bans? Oregon’s goes into effect on January 1. By January 2010, the economic uncertainty we’re facing now will hopefully have subsided. And unless it’s another freak year for weather, December will bring its usual boost to Oregon restaurants. If that happens, smoking ban proponents will be able to cite statistics showing that bar and restaurant business went up after the smoking ban, “proving” that they were right and we who oppose the ban had nothing to worry about.
A similar dynamic played out in New York City in March, 2004, a year after the beginning of its smoking ban. The city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene issued a report showing that the bar and restaurant business had grown in the year following the ban. Critics countered that the study misleadingly conflated bars and restaurants and neglected to account for the economic recovery following the 9/11 attacks.
Who’s right? I don’t know and I don’t care. As I’ve said before, this is a stupid argument. The financial objections to smoking bans aren’t based on how they affect net hospitality industry revenues, but on how they impact individual smoking-oriented businesses. Generalized statistics obscure the impact on bars that can’t get an exemption, lose customers, and justifiably feel like their rights are being trampled upon. It’s cold comfort to tell them to suck it up because, well, at least their competitors are making money.
If 2009 is a decent year for Oregon’s bars and restaurants, I predict that this is the kind of claim we’re going to hear from local ban supporters. I’d like to go on the record now to point out that such crude analysis should be seen for the irrelevant BS it truly is.
No Lye: China Bans Lutefisk
Just in time for lutefisk season, China has banned lye from all foodstuffs. It’s a sad day for… well, it’s a sad day for someone (presumably Scandinavian)!
Substances commonly used as industrial dyes, insecticides and drain cleaners were included on a list of illegal food additives China released Monday as part of a monthslong government crackdown aimed at improving the country’s shoddy food safety record.
Among the 17 banned substances was boric acid, commonly used as an insecticide, which is mixed with noodles and meatballs to increase elasticity, a statement posted on the Ministry of Health Web site said. Also forbidden was industrial formaldehyde and lye, used in making soap and drain cleaner and added to water used to soak some types of dried seafood to make the products appear fresher and bigger.
If you (like me) have never tried lutefisk, you’ll probably want to watch this video, in which a dimpled, bacon-obsessed Kermit the Frog shows viewers how to eat the fish dish. Listen Kermie: If you can’t say nuttin’ gute ’bout LUTEFISK, den don’t say nuttin’.
How to prep your lutefisk here. Flashback to when lutefisk cost $1.99 too much here. More on lye in general at the unimpeachable Wikipedia.
Picture via CureOlives.com, who uses the stuff to (drum roll) cure olives.
First they came for the cigarette smokers
Today the Boston City Council approved its measure banning the few remaining smoke-friendly businesses in the city. How bad is the new ban? Here’s City Councilor Michael Ross and restaurant owner Lydia Shire writing in the Boston Herald against it:
In these difficult times every small business is important. There are but six cigar bars in Boston, all of which undergo an annual local licensing process, exhibiting that 60 percent of their sales are from the sale of tobacco-related products and that the appropriate signage reflecting the risks of tobacco use is visible.
All six small businesses will be shut down if the regulations are passed as written. Even if these regulations are altered to temporarily grandfather in these six establishments, it is not reasonable to ask small business owners to maintain their significant investment in their communities, only to be shut down despite their commitment to be good businesses and neighbors.
They also note that the ban will extend to outdoor seating areas, unfairly punishing business owners who invested in patios to comply with the original smoking ban four years ago. Ross and Shire deserve full credit for opposing this rampant paternalism. Yet they’re a little late to the party. Note that they both support the earlier ban on smoking in bars and restaurants; they’re only stepping up now because they’re among those “who care to enjoy the pairing of a cigar and a glass of wine following dinner at one of Boston’s excellent restaurants.” Well la dee dah. If they’re not willing to be equally vigorous in their support of the property rights of sports bar owners or smokers who want to have a cigarette while they take in a music show, they have no right to be surprised when the city steps in to take away their precious postprandial maduros. The difference in the new ban and the original is one of degree, not of principle, and this is exactly the sort of thing we libertarians warned governments were heading towards when the original, less restrictive bans came into force. Now they expect city councils to draw a line protecting elitist cigar smokers like themselves? Give me a break. (And I say this as a fellow elitist cigar smoker.)
There is one interesting wrinkle though. The cigar and hookah bar ban was amended to not go into effect for ten years, with the possibility of one ten year extension after that. Twenty years is a long time, perhaps long enough for cooler heads to prevail; for now it lets the council look tough without actually hurting the businesses. Even so, how sickening is this excerpt from the AP report?
Roger Swartz, who heads the commission’s community initiatives bureau, said the panel lengthened the grace period for the bars because of hard economic times.
“We wanted to give them a bit more time to get used to the idea that they’ll have to close,” Swartz said.
Oh, how very nice of you Roger. You say that as though the bars’ closing was an inevitable event delayed only by the grace of Boston’s benevolent politicians, when you in fact are the ones driving them out of business. How does a person become so self-righteous that they can take credit for protecting small businesses on the same day they forbid their existence?
Today the Boston Public Health Commission justifies the slippery slope arguments made by property rights defenders many years ago. We were told that we shouldn’t worry, that the smoking bans in bars and restaurants were reasonable, and that sufficient accommodations for smokers would be made. Now we see that no ban is strict enough for the public health nannies, that even six cigar bars in a city of more than 600,000 people is too many. The regulators will, perhaps, finally overreach and create a backlash, but by then much of the damage to business owners will be done.
[Hat tip: The Stogie Guys.]
Smoking Inside, Er, Outside the Beltway
I have a piece up today at Culture 11 on how businesses can (and cannot) get around DC & Maryland smoking bans.
Speaking of DC & Maryland, did anyone else notice that NBC kept referring to Sunday night’s NFL game between the Redskins and Ravens as the “Battle of the Beltway”?
And which beltway would that be? 695?
I digress. A snip:
Perhaps the most egregious and subjective requirement of the waiver form is that a filer ordain whether “any like business opened or changed operations in” a waiver seeker’s “general vicinity” since January 1, 2005. (If yes, the applicant must provide an explanation.) For good measure, the application elsewhere describes a “change in operations” as “including, but not limited to a change in chef, manager, wait or other staff.”
In other words, in order to provide a complete response, a waiver applicant must ostensibly survey every nearby competitor to learn the intimacies of their staffing for the previous several years. Of course, a business owner has neither the obligation nor the incentive to aid his competitor.
More here.
