L.A. Councilwoman to South Central: No Fruit and Walnut Salad for You!
An L.A. councilwoman is making good on her longtime “health zoning” threat to ban new fast-food joints from her South Central neighborhood, the WaPo reports:
Citing alarming rates of childhood obesity and a poverty of healthful eating choices, a city councilwoman is pushing for a moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in South-Central Los Angeles.
“Some people will say, ‘Well, people just don’t have to eat it,’ ” said Jan Perry, the Democrat who represents the city’s overwhelmingly African American and Latino District 9. “But the fact of the matter is, what if you have no other choices?”
I don’t know South Central, but I do know that its things like this, from the LAT last year, that tend to limit choices:
[British grocer] Tesco has said it will put stores in low-income neighborhoods, including one that’s planned for Los Angeles at East Adams Boulevard and South Central Avenue.
[...]
A coalition of 25 community organizations in Southern California is set to call on Tesco today to sign a “community benefits agreement” that would bind the British retailer to its previous promises to pay its Southern California workers well above the minimum wage, offer health benefits and to be environmentally responsible when it launches its Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market chain of small grocery stores this fall.
Right. Way to encourage choices. As the excellent Katherine Mangu-Ward writes in the latest issue of Reason, “Few sins are less forgivable in polite society than offering poor people products they actively seek.”
Note the evil McDonald’s “fruit and walnut salad” in the WaPo’s story photo, btw.
To Your Health: 100-Year-Old Schlitz Ad
This Week in Bacon
I was happy to see the maple bacon lolly get some play in The Onion this week, but the real bacon news comes courtesy of everyone’s favorite libertarian game show host, Drew Carey, at Reason.
Watch as Drew travels through L.A., where he uncovers the truth behind the illicit trade in… bacon hot dogs.
Crispy first brought you the plight of L.A.’s bacon dog vendors a couple of months back.
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.
