Archives for the 'Food Law' Category
Chicago’s Foie Gras Ban is Dead!
Minutes ago, Chicago’s dreaded, idiotic foie gras ban died a deservedly graceless death, reports the Chicago Tribune.
With Mayor Richard Daley running the vote, the Chicago City Council on Wednesday repealed its controversial ban on foie gras.
Over the shouted objections of Ald. Joe Moore (49th), the ban’s sponsor, the council used a parliamentary manuever to put the ordinance on the floor for a vote.
On to California!
Congratulations to all who worked to overturn the ban, and especially to Didier Durand and Chicago Chefs for Choice. This is truly a great day for liberté du choix.
Crispy on foie here. Read my 2007 profile of Chicago Chefs for Choice and Durand here.
This Week in Bacon
Every year since 1991, DC-based Citizens Against Government Waste has released its fantastic and valuable Congressional Pig Book (summary | book). An anti-pork nonprofit, CAGW rails against wasteful congressional pet projects.
This year’s CAGW pork database produces fifty-four different results in a “food” keyword search, including $2.5 million to the Congressional Hunger Center; $1.5 million to design foods for health (Michael Pollan just died and rolled over in his grave); and $1.3 million to survey monkfish and migratory finfish trawling.
This may be pork of a different sort, but at times when we (diners, restaurateurs, waitstaff, and the like) are tightening our own belts, it’d be especially nice to see Congress stop robbing us blind by forcing us to fund their needless food (and other) projects.
Bonus Pork “Link”: I dig that the CAGW pig book cover stands nicely alongside those of food giants Jane Grigson and Fergus Henderson.
Any Excuse to Mention ‘Tapeheads’ is a Good One
Roscoe’s, the famed LA-area fried chicken and waffles chain, and Rosscoe’s, a new standalone fried chicken and waffles outlet in Chicago, reached a settlement today that will force the latter to change its name. More on that here.
This calls for multimedia! Sadly, the great Nike commercial featuring George Gervin and Chris Webber–comparing hoops to chicken and waffles–isn’t online. Fortunately, though, the great fake Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles ad from the cult film Tapeheads is:
Note the 18 second mark, where the ad’s star flashes the Crispy logo.
Hey Brit Kids, Watch This and Click Here
A British law against showing ads for so-called “junk food” to kids on the telly is writhing in defeat, apparently, due to something called Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, a popular TV show in which ads play a central role. The problem, as the whining nannies see it, is that, though it’s an adult show, kids like Ant and Dec, too, and so the show should be relegated to showing only ads for celery, watercress, or barley.
A ban was introduced in January on adverts for foods high in salt, sugar or fat during programmes whose viewers were mainly under the age of 16. It did not, however, affect the programmes with an audience mainly made up of adults, even though many more children watch them.
Among the programmes affected was the children’s cartoon SpongeBob Squarepants, which attracts about 170,000 child viewers. But Saturday Night Takeaway, a family show watched by more than a million children, was not.
New research has concluded the number of times children watch junk-food adverts during these family programmes has risen in the past two years by 26 per cent. The figures come from Dr Will Cavendish, director of health and wellbeing at the Department of Health, who described the trend as “worrying” at a time when almost a third of 11-year-olds are classified as overweight or obese.
In a report to the Westminster Food & Nutrition Forum, Dr Cavendish said ministers could take tougher action. “We know large numbers of children are still seeing TV ads for high fat, sugar and salt food and drink, though in programmes not specifically aimed at children,” he wrote.
The figures will fuel calls for a total ban on junk food ads before the 9pm watershed. A private member’s Bill to that effect, introduced by the Labour MP Nigel Griffiths, will receive its second reading this month. It aims also to create “significant restrictions” on marketing on the internet.
Restrict this. And this, this, this, and this. More here.
Food at the Fore of Cuban Government’s Baby Steps
It’s only taken five decades, and it hardly seems dramatic to outsiders who enjoy daily freedoms, but the Cuban government is finally moving–glacially–to recognize private property and private employment.
In a country where almost everyone works for the communist state, dairy farmer Jesus Diaz is his own boss. He likes it that way — and so does the government.
Living on a plot of land just big enough to graze four dairy cows, Diaz produces enough milk to sell about four quarts a day to the state.
This is independent production on a tiny scale, but it has proved so efficient that Cuba has decided on a major expansion of its program to distribute underused and fallow farmland to private farmers and cooperatives.
More here. IMO, a regime that’s ruined its citizens’ lives for half a century doesn’t deserve any credit for finally accepting the obvious. Learn about the guy at the top of the list of probably billions of people who could have told Cuba so here.
LA Confuses Catering with Loitering, Hates on Tacos
From LA Now, the LA Times’s SoCalCentric blog:
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is considering a new law that could leave the owners of taco and catering trucks facing jail time if they park in the same spot too long.
Currently, the food trucks that overstay the 30-minute limit in unincorporated Los Angeles County are subject only to a fine. But, as the San Gabriel Valley Tribune notes, the ordinance proposed by Supervisor Gloria Molina makes the violation a misdemeanor, which can carry jail time.
This is, um, bad. Food (including beer and wine) is pretty much the only great thing about 12% nation.** And taco trucks are pretty much the best thing about food in California. Which means that this new LA law is not only bad for California but bad for America.
**I apparently just coined this term, which refers to the fact California makes up 12% of the U.S. population.
English Nanny State Laws Set to Silence Pub Banter
Andy Capp is rolling in his grave, as new English anti-discrimination laws set to take effect on Sunday are keen on taking the banter out of the pub. The Morning Advertiser explains:
New discrimination laws to make employers liable for customers behaviour may make banter with the barmaid a thing of the past.
Landlords who allow sexist jokes or even words like “darling” or “love” at the bar could be taken before tribunal and handed unlimited fines.
Operators will need to show they have tried to combat sexual harassment of workers by customers if they are to guard against the risk of compensation claims.
Pubs have been advised to put up warning notices telling punters that staff harassment will not be tolerated.
Now, I’m all for bartenders feeling comfortable behind the bar. And that includes not taking any crap from the clientele. But I’ve never known a pushover bartender–male or female. They’re a hearty bunch, able to dish it even better than they take it.
But all that banter will be in the past, laments Tony Payne of the Federation of Licensed Victuallers Association. “[T]here has been rapport in the past,” he says, “you just can’t have it anymore.”
Rapport? Dead? In pubs? In England? Bloody sad, innit?
I have one question for Women and Equalities Minister Harriet Harman, the arse behind the rules. Harriet, love, can I get you a clue?
Chocolate Lawsuit Stinks Like Hershey Highway Robbery
Think you’re paying too much for a candy bar? Regional grocer Giant Eagle does, and they’re suing the manufacturers to put a stop to this chocolate chicanery.
Hershey Co., Mars Inc., Nestle SA and Cadbury Schweppes Plc are accused of fixing chocolate candy prices in the U.S. in a lawsuit filed by a Pittsburgh supermarket chain.
Giant Eagle Inc. claims in a suit filed March 26 that the companies and a Canadian wholesalers’ network, Itwal Inc., conspired to set artificially high prices for chocolates in violation of U.S. antitrust law.
The companies’ profits have fallen “because of increasing health concerns, and changing consumer preferences,” Giant Eagle claimed in its complaint, filed in federal court in Pittsburgh. “In the face of waning demand, defendants responded by instituting uniform parallel price increases” in the U.S. beginning in 2002, Giant Eagle claimed. (Ed.: emphasis mine)
Giant Eagle said in the complaint that it paid more than $200 million to buy chocolate bars, boxed chocolates and seasonal chocolate candy from the companies since 2002, at illegally inflated prices. Giant Eagle seeks unspecified damages, which may be tripled under antitrust law if the claim is successful.
More here. Suit here (PDF). The U.S. Dept. of Justice is also probing alleged price fixing by chocolate makers.
My 2 cents? Giant Eagle is full of crap. By noting chocolate bars’ “health concerns” and “waning demand,” the suit does nothing but tarnish the very products Giant Eagle sells. Sour grapes, if you ask me.
If the candy costs you too much, is unhealthy, and doesn’t sell very well, why the hell are you selling it, Giant Eagle? As for the U.S. government, the idea that there is such a thing as chocolate price fixing, and that this is something government attorneys would need to concern themselves with, shows just how big Big Brother really is.
Well-Financed Food Foes Bankroll NYC’s Shamtastic ‘Responsible Restaurant Act’
When a proposed law is so far afield that even New York City’s notorious, all-powerful Department of Public Health & Mental Hygiene finds it screwy, you know the bill’s backers are a prize and some peanuts short of a box of Cracker Jacks. Such is the case with the Responsible Restaurant Act, which would make city health officials responsible for settling labor disputes.
“Studies have shown, restaurants that are in violation of these employment laws, do have health issues involved,” said Responsible Restaurant Act supporter Joy Carlos. “So not only are the employees involved in this, but you as the customer is affected, as well”.
“So many workers are forced to work when they are sick, while preparing and serving food to the public,” said Cecilia, a restaurant worker who only gave her first name.
Opponents say the bill is vague and call it a direct attack on any establishment that holds a health department license, like cafeterias, hotels and night clubs.
This is why we find the city health department on the side of good this time–opposing the measure alongside the state restaurant association. Thankfully.
The RRA effort is bankrolled by a group known as the Brennan Center Strategic Fund, which is no doubt made up of concerned restaurant employees. April Fool’s! The RRA is real, but proponents consist of well-heeled lobbyists and a collection of poor, downtrodden folks at NYU law school. NYU, incidentally, is also home to tiresome food cop Marion Nestle.
Regulations Don’t Beget Safer Foods
On Friday, NPR-voiced podcaster Caleb Brown of the Cato Institute interviewed Peter Van Doren of Cato’s Regulation** magazine about the myth of food safety. As Van Doren puts it:
The problem is that government overpromises… The left points out [USDA & FDA are] underfunded and don’t have enough inspectors to actually do a good job. And the left is correct. It’s true.
But that’s a chronic problem. Instead of the answer to that being, “Oh, we could add more money to the budget and somehow solve the problem,” if you do the math, you’d find out you can’t have enough inspectors to actually adequately provide assurances of the sort many voters want.
More here. Cato podcast index here.
The Federal Times on food safety issues here. The U.S. government’s own food safety website — which, as the image above shows, proves the feds aren’t wasting a blessed penny of their food-safety inspection budget on web design — here.
**I’m guessing that Regulation is the only magazine published by a think tank that boasts a former Dancing with the Stars contestant as a columnist.
Judge Tosses Foie Suit
Rare good news in the fight to keep foie gras legal, as a NY State judge has tossed a suit against Hudson Valley Foie Gras. Though I can’t find anything online to corroborate the news, a well-placed source tells me this Albany Times-Union blog post is accurate:
According to Patricia Lynch Associates, which represents Hudson Valley Foie Gras, State Supreme Court Judge John Egan Jr., last week rejected a lawsuit against the Sullivan County farm which contended that foie gras was an “adulterated food product.”
The Humane Society of the U.S. tried to say that the delicacy, made from fattened liver, was the product of a diseased animal but Egan disagreed.
I assume Judge Egan granted a motion for summary judgment, prior to trial, but will report back when I see official news. Regardless, good for Hudson Valley and the people who love their food.
Anton Ego Green-Lighted to Un-Retire
A judge in Ireland has overturned a lower court ruling that awarded damages to a restaurant owner whose restaurant scored a poor review from critic and chef Caroline Workman in The Irish News, reports the Times Online.
Restaurant critics, and newspaper proprietors, were celebrating yesterday after a judge upheld their rights to publish unflattering reviews of bad food and lousy service.
Sir Brian Kerr, the Northern Ireland Lord Chief Justice, overturned the award of £25,000 to Goodfellas pizza restaurant in West Belfast against The Irish News.
[…]
The newspaper’s restaurant critic, Caroline Workman, criticised the quality of the food, the staff and the joyless, smoky atmosphere of Mr Convery’s premises. The jury, hearing the case more than a year ago, agreed with Mr Convery that her review was defamatory, damaging and hurtful and he was awarded £25,000 in damages.
A sampling from Workman’s original review:
After one ring of squid . . . it became clear the dishes were made with the cheapest ingredients on the market”
“Our main courses arrived in as much time as it took the chef in view to rip open three blue industrial-size bags of processed cheese”
“The staff have no more time to be involved with their customers than those in a motorway cafe”
Critics talk about the secrets to plying their trade here, here and here.
Yous Guys Moved My Cheese
Lino Saputo, the billionaire cheese-making owner of Saputo, who is almost universally identified in media reports as a Montreal cheese magnate, is fighting back in court against allegations printed in Canadian and Italian papers linking him to the mafia.
Cheese maker Saputo Inc. (TSX:SAP) is suing several Canadian media for defamation over stories linking founder Lino Saputo to the Italian Mafia.
Reports published in December alleged Saputo was part of an investigation by Italian police into a Mafia money-laundering scheme worth some $600 million.
Both the company and Lino Saputo have denied links to organized crime and say legal proceedings in Italy have already confirmed Saputo is not under investigation by the Italian police.
More from the Canadian Press. Perhaps fighting back against the suit, one popular Canadian site today is featuring a non-Saputo list of The Best Cheeses You’ve Never Heard Of.
