New York City Councilman Has Proposed Limiting Fast Food Restaurants
New York City is home to literally hundreds if not thousands of fast food restaurants. From the classic burgers and fries, to the famous New York City hot-dog. A person can walk perhaps only a city block or two and run into a inexpensive way to fill their belly. Unfortunately, these food options are almost always bad for the persons health. In most cases they are full of trans fat along with empty calories and carbs. This most certainly has a serious impact on the ongoing obesity problem in the country. However in New York City one city councilman aims to change all of that with a radical new proposal that would set limitations on the number of these restaurants that can operate in any given area.
Councilman and Chair of the Health Committee Joel Rivera has proposed the measure as a means of combating obesity particularly in low income areas and in children. On any given day at three o’clock one can observe a crowd of school children on line at the nearest MacDonald’s. Councilman Rivera’s proposal would reverse this trend by making it harder to locate these fast food restaurants and push them further away thereby deterring school kids and people in general from taking the trip to satisfy their Big Mac attacks.
“We’re talking about restaurants with high trans fats, restaurants where calorie intake is such a magnitude it reaches the 1000 calorie in one meal version,” Rivera said, further arguing that by the year 2010 more then 50 percent of our kids will suffer from obesity. Rivera’s plan for zoning restrictions is modeled after an older plan implemented some years ago by former New York City mayor Rudolf Giuliani that targeted the pornography business in the city forcing them to relocate to side streets away from major avenues and schools.
Councilman Rivera’s plan while sound in principal is full of holes and fails to consider the problems with its implementation. Unlike the Giuliani administrations pornography zoning initiative there are many more fast food restaurants and locations that serve fast food in New York City as opposed to porn shops. Not to mention the fact that there is no mention about which fast food restaurants will be targeted, who makes the decision that one form of fast food is so bad that it warrants relocation and another restaurant does not? It also does not take into account the hundreds of hot-dog and lunch truck vendors that serve all of New York everyday. How could they possibly keep tabs on their locations especially since they are highly mobile.
Rivera’s plan also appears to have several flaws economically as well, while its intention is to foster better eating habits amongst lower income areas, it fails to consider that forcing these restaurants out of the area would but the jobs they provide to the residence of said area in jeopardy. In effect further plummeting the already poverty stricken area into further economic peril. Even if the jobs of the employees were secure it would still take a disastrous tole on the population as now a further commute for the workers would now be in order forcing them to pay more for transportation to and from work.
The plan leaves many questions un-addressed such as “why if lunches are served in school, (usually free of charge) are the fast food restaurants mobbed by hungry school kids at the end of the school day?” It is reasonable to assume that the issue is not with the restaurants its with the eating habits of the children and individuals. In which case the zoning laws would make no difference. What is to stop a person from going to his neighborhood corner store and purchasing boxes of “Ring-Dings” and six to ten bags of chips? With this plan we see once again a foolish attempt to give the illusion of progress with a initaitive that is politically charged and poorly thought out instead of addressing the real problem.
America has a serious weight problem this is well known, but implementing a initaitive that in effect harms those it is supposed to be helping is just ridiculous! One cannot force people via legislation into better eating habits. Targeting restaurants for the actions of their patrons is just wrong it takes blame off of the individual who is knowing clogging his or her arteries and places it on the restaurant whose health damaging food is common knowledge. Isn’t it time we all grew up and started taking long hard looks in the mirror and accepting sole responsibility for our rear ends not fitting in it? Instead of blaming a goofy looking clown with fire-red hair for out inability to put down the large fries.
