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L.A. blocks new fast food outlets from poor areas
Published Wednesday, July 30, 2008
LOS ANGELES (AP) — City officials are putting South Los Angeles on a diet.
The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to place a moratorium on new fast food restaurants in an impoverished swath of the city with a proliferation of such eateries and above average rates of obesity.
The yearlong moratorium is intended to give the city time to attract restaurants that serve healthier food. The action, which the mayor must still sign into law, is believed to be the first of its kind by a major city to protect public health.
"Our communities have an extreme shortage of quality foods," City Councilman Bernard Parks said.
Representatives of fast-food chains said they support the goal of better diets but believe they are being unfairly targeted. They say they already offer healthier food items on their menus.
"It's not where you eat, it's what you eat," said Andrew Puzder, president and chief executive of CKE Restaurants, parent company of Carl's Jr. "We were willing to work with the city on that, but they obviously weren't interested."
The California Restaurant Association and its members will consider a legal challenge to the ordinance, spokesman Andrew Casana said.
Thirty percent of adults in South Los Angeles area are obese, compared to 19.1 percent for the metropolitan area and 14.1 percent for the affluent Westside, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
Research has shown that people will change eating habits when different foods are offered, but cost is a key factor in poor communities, said Kelly D. Brownell, director of Yale University's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.
"Cheap, unhealthy food and lack of access to healthy food is a recipe for obesity," Brownell said. "Diets improve when healthy food establishments enter these neighborhoods."
A report by the Community Health Councils found 73 percent of South Los Angeles restaurants were fast food, compared to 42 percent in West Los Angeles.
South Los Angeles resident Curtis English acknowledged that fast food is loaded with calories and cholesterol. But since he's unemployed and does not have a car, it serves as a cheap, convenient staple for him.
On Monday, he ate breakfast and lunch — a sausage burrito and double cheeseburger, respectively — at a McDonald's a few blocks from home for just $2.39.
"I don't think there's too many fast food places," he said. "People like it."
Others welcomed an opportunity to get different kinds of food into their neighborhood.
"They should open more healthy places," Dorothy Meighan said outside a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet. "There's too much fried stuff."
Councilwoman Jan Perry said that view repeatedly surfaced at the five community meetings she held during the past two years. Residents are tired of fast food, and many don't have cars to drive to places with other choices, she said.
The city's Community Redevelopment Agency has developed a package of incentives designed to attract more restaurants serving healhier food to inner-city neighborhoods. Perks include assistance in finding parcels of land, low-interest loans, matching funds for burying utility lines, discounted electricity rates, and tax credits.
Los Angeles' ban comes at a time when governments of all levels are increasingly viewing menus as a matter of public health. On Friday, California became the first state in the nation to bar trans fats, which lower levels of good cholesterol and increase bad cholesterol.
The moratorium, which can be extended up to a year, only affects standalone restaurants, not eateries located in malls or strip shopping centers. It defines fast-food restaurants as those that do not offer table service and provide a limited menu of pre-prepared or quickly heated food in disposable wrapping.
The definition exempts "fast-food casual" restaurants such as El Pollo Loco, Subway and Pastagina, which do not have drive-through windows or heat lamps and prepare fresh food to order.
The ordinance also makes it harder for existing fast-food restaurants to expand or remodel.
Rebeca Torres, a South Los Angeles mother of four, said she would welcome more dining choices, even if she had to pay a little more.
"They should have better things for children," she said. "This fast food really fattens them up."
Comments
Posted by fire39212 (anonymous) on July 30, 2008 at 1:07 p.m. (Suggest removal)
How in the world can they tell you how or where to eat?
Posted by fire39212 (anonymous) on July 30, 2008 at 1:08 p.m. (Suggest removal)
They are worried about your health so they say but, yet you can still buy cigarettes!!! Things that make you go hmmm..
Posted by motown (anonymous) on July 30, 2008 at 4:51 p.m. (Suggest removal)
well cigs don't make you fat, and they dont want any fat people in cali
Posted by guy2co (anonymous) on July 30, 2008 at 9:21 p.m. (Suggest removal)
It started with cigs, now fast food,whats next? Everybody was ready to turn on smokers and make them stop for their own health, well fast food does just as much damage. I say if you raise taxes on cigerettes, you should raise it on unhealthy foods.What's the difference? We are slowly losing our freedoms.
Posted by Swapmeet (anonymous) on July 30, 2008 at 10:48 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I think we should have an open discussion on whether or not people who are on medicaid should be able to smoke or become morbidly obese. If we taxpayers are footing their medical expenses, should we be able to tell those people to cut out actions in their lives that will raise their personal medical expenses? Just an honest question I think should be addressed.
Posted by fire39212 (anonymous) on July 31, 2008 at 1:10 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I think you are on to something there swapmeet....
if the goverment made the money off of fast food like they do cig. they wouldn't be allowing them not to be built no matter where it was.....
Posted by ProNatchez (anonymous) on July 31, 2008 at 5:43 a.m. (Suggest removal)
You're right Guy2co. It started with smokers. Now it's fat people. Next, they will try to get rid of ugly people.
Posted by fire39212 (anonymous) on July 31, 2008 at 12:24 p.m. (Suggest removal)
lol@pronatchez...
Posted by fire39212 (anonymous) on July 31, 2008 at 1:02 p.m. (Suggest removal)
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/air...
Posted by kpage (anonymous) on July 31, 2008 at 11:38 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Oh my goodness! They think people in the poor section of town will be excited about and can afford to feast on tofu and bean sprouts. Not gonna happen. If L.A.'s government can have the power to prevent the cheap, unhealthy crap from dotting the landscape, then they have the means to teach those who have eating disorders to grow and prepare fresh veggies properly. With the money used to build one Kentucky Fried Chicken, a dilapidated city block can be turned into a giant garden, tended by those with an interest in eating right. Just banning McD's ain't gonna make people automatically stop their eating disorder.
Posted by destiny (anonymous) on August 1, 2008 at 12:18 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I'm going today to buy a cartoon of cigs and I'll be sure to stop by MC D's for my monthly treat of burger, ff, and shake. Gotta luv it!!!!!
Posted by hopefloats (anonymous) on August 1, 2008 at 6:29 p.m. (Suggest removal)
el pollo loco ...now thats one weird experience if you haven't been in one!
Posted by Yeahuhuh (anonymous) on August 2, 2008 at 10:26 a.m. (Suggest removal)
We should have some faith in what passes as the free market. If LA wants to class up their landscape, nutrition, or the cellulite panorama, so be it.
Somebody will bring in some food and make a buck.
I didn't speak up about them taking other folks' Argentine beef hamburgers as I watched them take burger after burger. Then, when they came to get my sausage biscuit, no one was there to listen to my cries......He,he! Just kidding.
Posted by KindredSpirit (anonymous) on August 2, 2008 at 11:59 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Perhaps they could ban any further news stories on Britney, Paris, or the Pitt twins.
Posted by NtzMom55 (anonymous) on August 3, 2008 at 12:40 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Government is taking more and more away from Americans every year. Are we becoming the "United Socialist States of America"(USSA)? Just because there is a McDonald's on your street corner doesn't mean that you are forced to do business with them.
Posted by wonderingirl (anonymous) on August 5, 2008 at 12:03 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Who will be responsible for closing the gap between the price of the sit-down restaurants and the fast food restaurants in order to make the food not only available but affordable? Also, people waiting tables are usually dependent on tips to make a livable wage. Will restaurants but forced to add higher wages to the cost of food? Will they be forced to accept food stamps?Why isn't this being dealt with like all other business: supply and demand? If they don't want fast food then don't buy it.Government started with the protection of known smokers health. Then laws to force people to quit smoking for their own health.
Posted by wonderingirl (anonymous) on August 5, 2008 at 12:08 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Now government wants to regulate people's weight. This is a slippery slope. I wonder what they will do to force people to exercise or to get enough sleep?
Posted by wonderingirl (anonymous) on August 5, 2008 at 12:13 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Above comment should have said non-smokers health not known smokers health. I guess that is why you should preview your comment so it makes sense.
Posted by Teach4Peace (anonymous) on August 5, 2008 at 3:04 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Trouble is what happens when you try to legislate personal responsibility. The poor can go elsewhere and eat unhealthy and it's not just the poor who do! We all are aware of what we put into our mouths. We all basically know that if we sit all day everyday and do nothing but gorge and graze, the consequences of such actions. Smokers, alcholics all fall into this same category, as far as I am concerned.
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