Yesterday I wrote about San Francisco's new ban on tobacco sales in the city's drug stores, enacted because selling tobacco in drug stores sends the wrong message to children. Really, that's the reason. Read the story.
It's another example of the encroaching Nanny State, which is reached via the Slippery Slope, and in my comments yesterday I speculated that fast food surely would be the next target.
Would that I were not so prescient.
Yesterday, even as I was predicting it, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously passed a one-year ban on new fast-food restaurants in one of the city's poorest areas. The ban's stated purpose is to fight rising obesity rates, especially among children.
The mayor has to sign the bill for it to become law.
As in San Francisco, the ordinance has the peculiar feature of singling out a particular type of retail enterprise, so new McDonald's and Burger King stores will be prohibited, but there is nothing to prevent Red Robin, for example, whose featured item is a $10 hamburger, from opening all of the units it wants, simply because Burger King has counter service and Red Robin has table service.
Not to pick on Red Robin, but their web site has a slick feature that allows you to build your own burger, or other item from their menu, and see the nutritional information for your creation. A plain burger, on a bun, with lettuce and no other toppings, is 555 calories, with 25 grams of fat.
Conversely, a fast food chain like El Pollo Loco, that features low-fat flame-broiled chicken (which is great, by the way), is banned, not because its own menu is bad, but because it is classified as fast food. El Pollo Loco also provides nutritional information on its web site. A broiled chicken breast, with skin, is 224 calories, with 9 grams of fat.
The justification for the ordinance is a 2007 report which found that 30 percent of children living in the South Los Angeles, West Adams, Baldwin Hills and Leimert Park areas are obese compared to about 21 percent in the rest of the city.
Beverly Hills anorexics are probably pulling down the average.
Again, if city governments can keep certain kinds of restaurants out of certain neighborhoods because they have decided the people there are too fat, what's next?
You will have to answer that question for yourself because I'm afraid to predict. I'm too good at it.
Showing posts with label nanny state. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nanny state. Show all posts
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
San Francisco Bans Tobacco Sales in Pharmacies.
I see slippery slopes everywhere, especially when they involve people trying to force me to do what is best for me against my better judgment. That's why I pay attention when Chicago talks about enacting a mandatory spay/neuter program, even though I don't have pets. It's also why I complain about showboating legislators who demagogue about alcohol producers marketing to children, even though I don't drink Mike's Hard Lemonade. And it's why I pay attention when San Francisco decides to ban tobacco sales in drug stores, even though I don't smoke.
Some of the San Francisco Supervisors who pushed the ban predicted it will be a "first step" toward additional bans on the sale of tobacco in the city. Not surprisingly, Marin County can't wait to follow San Francisco's lead.
The law bans the sale of all tobacco products at pharmacies, including Walgreens and Rite Aid, but not at any other kind of store, including big-box stores like Costco and supermarkets like Safeway that also have pharmacies. The pharmacies, naturally, opposed the ordinance, citing basic fairness and the fact that pharmacies also sell smoking cessation products and pharmacists can give smokers advice about how to quit.
Anyway, that's just posturing. The real issue is the whole Nanny State idea. I've accepted the idea of banning trans-fats, because there was no reason to keep using them after it was determined that they are more harmful than saturated fats, but cigarettes are not comparable and are still a legal product. The idea that a city can take it upon itself to change that fact within its borders sounds like a Commerce Clause violation to me.
The now very broad smoking bans, like the one we have in Illinois, are rationalized primarily as protecting people from second-hand smoke. This is simply intended to make cigarettes harder to buy, and the fact that the mayor's spokesman could say the following should scare everybody. "A pharmacy is a place you should go to get better, not to get cancer." The Public Health Director expanded that thought a little further. "We teach our children that supermarkets and wholesale stores are places you go to buy everything. When it comes to pharmacies, I feel that our children and our teenagers get a different message." Of course, it's always all about the children.
What the article doesn't make clear is the mechanism San Francisco will use to enforce the ban. If Walgreens were to say, "screw you, you can't tell us what we can sell," what could the city do to them? When Chicago banned the sale of foie gras (no, really, they did), it was a ticket and a fine.
If you run any kind of business, think about where this could go. Think about the slippery slope. You're going to have city governments in the towns where your stores are located reviewing your merchandise selection and telling you what you can and cannot sell, based on what message the city government thinks that product is sending to children?
Let's leave indecent literature out of the discussion for right now, because of the additional First Amendment protection. What about selling clothing that the city government considers too revealing, or just too tacky? We want the children to learn good taste too, don't we?
Since cases have found that clothing can be expression, let's leave that out too. Let's go to the obvious next step, unhealthy foods. What if a city decides to ban the sale of ice cream above a certain butterfat percentage, or requires that restaurants not sell any individual meal that contains more than 2,000 calories? Or bans the sale of soft drinks altogether.
Not possible?
Lots of things seem impossible until they happen. That's why you have to look out for the slippery slope.
Some of the San Francisco Supervisors who pushed the ban predicted it will be a "first step" toward additional bans on the sale of tobacco in the city. Not surprisingly, Marin County can't wait to follow San Francisco's lead.
The law bans the sale of all tobacco products at pharmacies, including Walgreens and Rite Aid, but not at any other kind of store, including big-box stores like Costco and supermarkets like Safeway that also have pharmacies. The pharmacies, naturally, opposed the ordinance, citing basic fairness and the fact that pharmacies also sell smoking cessation products and pharmacists can give smokers advice about how to quit.
Anyway, that's just posturing. The real issue is the whole Nanny State idea. I've accepted the idea of banning trans-fats, because there was no reason to keep using them after it was determined that they are more harmful than saturated fats, but cigarettes are not comparable and are still a legal product. The idea that a city can take it upon itself to change that fact within its borders sounds like a Commerce Clause violation to me.
The now very broad smoking bans, like the one we have in Illinois, are rationalized primarily as protecting people from second-hand smoke. This is simply intended to make cigarettes harder to buy, and the fact that the mayor's spokesman could say the following should scare everybody. "A pharmacy is a place you should go to get better, not to get cancer." The Public Health Director expanded that thought a little further. "We teach our children that supermarkets and wholesale stores are places you go to buy everything. When it comes to pharmacies, I feel that our children and our teenagers get a different message." Of course, it's always all about the children.
What the article doesn't make clear is the mechanism San Francisco will use to enforce the ban. If Walgreens were to say, "screw you, you can't tell us what we can sell," what could the city do to them? When Chicago banned the sale of foie gras (no, really, they did), it was a ticket and a fine.
If you run any kind of business, think about where this could go. Think about the slippery slope. You're going to have city governments in the towns where your stores are located reviewing your merchandise selection and telling you what you can and cannot sell, based on what message the city government thinks that product is sending to children?
Let's leave indecent literature out of the discussion for right now, because of the additional First Amendment protection. What about selling clothing that the city government considers too revealing, or just too tacky? We want the children to learn good taste too, don't we?
Since cases have found that clothing can be expression, let's leave that out too. Let's go to the obvious next step, unhealthy foods. What if a city decides to ban the sale of ice cream above a certain butterfat percentage, or requires that restaurants not sell any individual meal that contains more than 2,000 calories? Or bans the sale of soft drinks altogether.
Not possible?
Lots of things seem impossible until they happen. That's why you have to look out for the slippery slope.
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