Jacob Grier

An IHT article about a new spa in Alexandria that lets customers soak their feet in a pool of tiny carp hungry for dead human skin notes that “state regulations make no provision for regulating fish pedicures.” This is Virginia, just give them time! Swimming pool regulations did kick in however:

“But the county health department — which does regulate pools — required the salon to switch from a shallow, tiled communal pool that served as many as eight people to individual tanks in which the water is changed for each customer.”

Thank goodness they were on the case.

[Via Tom.]

Previously:
Sticking it to the manicure

Like my friend Chad, I was too busy last week to weigh in on the debate over the ban on new fast food restaurants in South L.A. William Saletan of Slate does a good job taking on the idea that this is just another kind of zoning and that we libertarians should stop getting our collective undies in a knot over it:

When an old practice ventures into new territory, you can always choose to look at it as the same old thing. But in this case, the novelty of the application is what’s interesting. Most cities have long zoned liquor stores, and some have zoned chain restaurants for reasons other than health, such as tackiness. What’s new in L.A. is the zoning of fast food as a health threat akin to liquor. Health zoning has crossed the line from booze and cigarettes to food. This goes way beyond tackiness. In principle, it justifies banning the targeted restaurants not just here or there but everywhere…

This comparison has played a central role in the campaign for the moratorium. And it’s a crucial comparison, because it justifies and, to some extent, obscures a huge step: telling food merchants that they may not open any new outlets in certain neighborhoods because their kind of food is inherently unhealthy…

So if you’re going to start prohibiting certain kinds of food outlets, fast food is a logical food to target, southern L.A. is a logical place to do it (though I still think segregated food zoning as a solution to “food apartheid” is twisted), and one year is a logical introductory period. That’s what makes the L.A. ordinance worth debating: It presents the most tempting case for crossing the line to restrict food like cigarettes or whiskey. But you still have to decide whether to cross that line—and where you’ll stop once you do.

Read the whole thing here. I would add one other difference between traditional zoning and what the L.A. council is doing. As a default, we should leave the decision over what kinds of businesses open in a neighborhood to the interplay of entrepreneurs and customers. Legitimate zoning steps in to shore up externalities. So, for example, it’s understandable that we might want to restrict late night bars from opening if the noise they produce would adversely impact nearby residents. Or some businesses might be restricted because of their impact on traffic. More dubiously, neighborhoods might forbid chains because they have no community character. In all of these cases it’s the broader, external effects of the businesses that are being addressed. With the fast food ban, in contrast, the L.A. council is forbidding businesses to open for the good of the customers who would patronize them. That’s a major line to cross, and one that libertarians are justified in opposing.

(Yes, one could argue that the public health costs of obesity are a relevant externality. But that’s not a problem local to L.A., not addressed by this narrow ban, and a slippery slope I’d prefer not to go down.)

Tom Bell’s newly posted song lyrics remind me of another pathetic fact about Oregon: you’re not allowed to pump your own gas there. The state requires gas stations to be full-service, like it or not. Imagine this Texas boy reduced to having someone pump his gas for him! I’ll cringe every time I fill up.

The purpose of the ban on self-service is to protect the outdated jobs of gas station attendants, but the legislature goes to hilarious lengths to justify it on public safety grounds. Among the reasons for enactment listed in the law:

(2) Appropriate safety standards often are unenforceable at retail self-service stations in other states because cashiers are often unable to maintain a clear view of and give undivided attention to the dispensing of Class 1 flammable liquids by customers;

(3) Higher liability insurance rates charged to retail self-service stations reflect the dangers posed to customers when they leave their vehicles to dispense Class 1 flammable liquids, such as the increased risk of crime and the increased risk of personal injury resulting from slipping on slick surfaces;

(4) The dangers of crime and slick surfaces described in subsection (3) of this section are enhanced because Oregon’s weather is uniquely adverse, causing wet pavement and reduced visibility;

(7) Exposure to toxic fumes represents a health hazard to customers dispensing Class 1 flammable liquids;

(9) The exposure to Class 1 flammable liquids through dispensing should, in general, be limited to as few individuals as possible, such as gasoline station owners and their employees or other trained and certified dispensers;

(10) The typical practice of charging significantly higher prices for full-service fuel dispensing in states where self-service is permitted at retail… Discriminates against customers with lower incomes, who are under greater economic pressure to subject themselves to the inconvenience and hazards of self-service;

(17) Small children left unattended when customers leave to make payment at retail self-service stations creates a dangerous situation.

Yikes, it’s a wonder I’ve survived to 26 engaging in such dangerous activity all these years.

Number 7 is especially worth noting. If operating a gas pump is truly that dangerous, why is the state requiring station attendants to assume the risk on behalf of drivers? If the Oregon legislature is going to ban smoking in bars and restaurants to protect workers, it should ban full-service gas stations too. Or better yet, it should free both kinds of businesses to set their own policies and let employees and customers decide if it’s worth dealing with them. Yeah, that’ll be the day…

I’ve only recently started following Oregon news, so I didn’t realize until this weekend that a state-wide smoking ban goes into effect there starting January 1. The state’s less paternalist tendencies were one of the things attracting me there over Seattle, and while the OR ban doesn’t quite reach Seattle levels of stupidity, it’s still pretty bad. It does, at least, include exemptions for existing cigar bars and tobacco shops.

I don’t smoke often and while working I do prefer being in a non-smoking bar, but still, sensible smoking policies are one thing I’m going to miss about tobacco-friendly Virginia.

Previously:
Smoking ban unfair, insulting
The magic of politics

One of the common complaints about smoking bans is that with the cigarettes gone there’s nothing to cover up the scents from the bar and other patrons. Axe Body Spray has taken advantage of this with a clever new website, AxeSmokeFreeBars.com.

Axe hired Dr. Alan Hirsch of Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago — he has credentials and a white lab coat — to examine the smells in a popular Chicago bar compared to other environments. His findings? The odor concentration in the bar was better than in a pig slaughter house, but worse than an animal rescue shelter, men’s room, or industrial site. A coffee shop was the best smelling place. (Was it Intelligentsia?)

And that’s where Axe comes in:

When smoking is allowed inside bars, cigarette smoke acts as a mask to the underlying bad smells that reside. But smoke doesn’t just hide these smells, it actually kills and temporarily paralyzes your “olfactory apparatus” (ability to smell). As a result, you cannot detect your own odors, the odors of others in the bar, odors outside the bar or odors on your way home that evening.

After being surrounded by smoke in a bar all night, any girl who leaves with a guy would not detect his underlying body odor later that night – or, potentially, the next morning. Thus, guys – unfortunately – could get away with smelling bad, and girls are unable to recognize it.

Furthermore, regular smoking impairs your ability to smell. A girl who smokes heavily could be much less likely to even recognize that a guy smelled badly.

Why should all this matter to you? Because the elimination of smoke allowed guys’ underlying body odor to come out – both at the bar and after they leave. And to a prospective “hook-up” – no matter how you look, how much money you make or how interesting you are – if you smell bad, the girl’s attraction to you will plummet. That fact is not rocket (or scent) science!

I realize it’s pure marketing, but I’m amused enough to post it anyway.

That New York calorie law that was supposed to only target big chain restaurants? It’s sweeping up some smaller businesses, too:

A few restaurants appeared to be caught completely off guard by the calorie rules, especially the homegrown fast-food chains that pepper New York City’s outer boroughs.

“This has been an absolute nightmare,” said Enrique Almela, director of operations at Singas Famous Pizza, which has 17 restaurants, most in the borough of Queens.

The menu rule only applies to restaurants that serve standardized portion sizes and have 15 or more locations nationwide, a distinction that was intended to target fast-food giants. But in practice, the low threshold has swept up little-known outfits like Singas Famous Pizza and other local franchises that have never done nutritional testing before.

Almela spoke with The Associated Press from his car Wednesday as he rushed sample pizzas to a food laboratory. He said the calorie tests for his 35 different pizza combinations will cost $10,000, and he doubts they will produce accurate data.

“I may put 15 pepperoni on a pie. Someone else may put 12. We don’t measure the amount of cheese we put on,” he said. “If you put up roundabout numbers, how does that help anyone?”

The deadline also looked problematic for a unique class of New York City eateries: loosely affiliated, largely immigrant-owned restaurants that share the same name and sometimes the same suppliers, but operate independently.

Afgan Paper & Food Products, which distributes food and packaging materials to many of the eateries, said it was scrambling to get them calorie info.

“The stores are all calling and asking for information. We don’t have it,” said Mariam Mashriqi, a receptionist at the company.

In the meantime, Mashriqi said, some owners were paying for the laboratory tests themselves.

“These are small stores. They are barely making a profit,” she said.

$10,000 out of a guy’s pocket just to tell customers with dubious precision that pizza isn’t health food. Nice job, New York.

[Via Hit and Run.]

For Reason.TV, Drew Carey takes a look at our nanny state culture.

San Francisco felt like it was falling behind in the race to have the biggest nanny state (seriously, that was the motivation, read the article), so the city is considering two new anti-smoking ordinances, including one that would ban smoking even in tobacco shops:

Mayor Gavin Newsom has proposed prohibiting tobacco sales in pharmacies, including Walgreens and Rite Aid. The city’s public health chief said the proposal is modeled after rules in eight provinces in Canada but has not been tried anywhere in the United States.

Supervisor Chris Daly has proposed legislation that would vastly limit areas where people can smoke.

Gone would be smoking in all businesses and bars, which now make an exception for owner-operated ones.

Gone too would be lighting up in taxicabs and rental cars, city-owned vehicles, farmers’ markets, common areas of apartment buildings, tourist hotels, tobacco shops, charity bingo games, unenclosed dining areas, waiting areas such as lines at an ATM or movie theater, and anywhere within 20 feet of entrances to private, nonresidential buildings.

And you thought they’d stop at protecting bar and restaurant workers. No, this is about hatred of smokers and wanting to make life as miserable for them as possible, casting them out to the edges of society. And every time we reach a new normal, they’ll extend the bans even farther.

[Via Radley.]

Previously:
Banzhaf crosses the line

The California state legislature has passed a bill to ban trans fats in restaurants throughout the state, which is both unsurprising and stupid. Here’s the only interesting part:

The bill also allows local governments to create trans fat ordinances, such as San Francisco’s voluntary plan under which restaurants that pass a $250 inspection will be awarded a decal indicating that they are trans fat free. The city’s law takes effect this month.

Whether publicly or privately administered, a certification plan like that would be a better way to help concerned consumers avoid trans fats.Why not give the idea a try before coercing every restaurant in the state to change their menus?

Paul Roberts and I discussed trans fats in The Los Angeles Times last month.

In the future, no one will know how to eat anything and every meal will come with Ikea-style illustrated instructions detailing how sandwich A is inserted into mouth B to make the consumption happen. I don’t think people actually are that stupid, but our keepers disagree. Here’s the latest from Cape Cod:

The town board of health is considering a plan to require labels on takeout food and doggie bags with time stamps and storage instructions, according to a draft of the proposed rules.

Restaurant owners and grocery store supervisors are arguing the labels would be an unnecessary hassle and expense… Under the proposal, the eateries would have to clearly label every package of food that goes out the door with the date of preparation and the time of sale. The label would also need to include a reminder of when to refrigerate the food and how to reheat it. Violations of the labeling requirement would be subject to fines of up to $50.

Even I am dumbfounded that this idea is getting serious consideration. And the town health board has been “mulling it over” for an entire year. My favorite line is this one:

The logistics of the regulations could use some work, health board member Burton Kaplan said after last night’s meeting. But she said that challenge is not necessarily a reason to shelve the idea entirely.

“I do honestly believe that this board has to be proactive and not reactive to a problem,” he said.

That’s the spirit. Don’t just react to problems, find solutions to problems that don’t even exist!

[Via Coldmud.]

It was only a matter of time before an entire country tried to ban smoking and the possession or sale of tobacco products. I wouldn’t have guessed that tiny, charming Niue would be leading the way, however:

Health officials want to make the tiny South Pacific island of Niue the first country in the world to be fully smoke-free by banning tobacco.

A bill proposing to ban smoking and the sale of tobacco in all public areas and private homes has been drafted and presented to lawmakers, Dr. Sitaleki Finau, Niue’s top public health official, said Tuesday.

The government has not yet signed up to the plan, and Finau conceded it could face stiff opposition from tobacco companies and other commercial interests.

But health officials were urging legislators to be bold and impose the bans…

Finau said the plan was being opposed by the makers of tobacco products and some other commercial interests, and the government would also have to consider whether smokers’ rights were being trampled.

Hint: Yes, their rights would be trampled. How is that even a question?

Niue is an extremely isolated island whose residents enjoy free internet access funded by clever marketing of their “.nu” top-level domain, which I wrote about back in January 2005. I’ve considered supporting the program by buying my own .nu domain, but if the island becomes a tiny nanny state, I’ll definitely scratch that idea.

Update 7/10/08: D White correctly notes that Bhutan banned the sale of tobacco products in 2004. I think the country still allows personal consumption, though, which would still make Niue’s ban the world’s strictest.

Congrats, you’re in the nation’s most paternalistic city! Though it’s not online yet, for a Reason article Radley Balko took on the enviable research project of digging into America’s vice laws and see which city is the most restrictive of government freedom. Here’s his summary of why Chicago came out on bottom:

Chicago reigns supreme when it comes to treating its citizens like children (Las Vegas topped our rankings as America’s freest city). Chicagoans pay the second-highest cigarette tax in the country, and the sixth-highest tax on alcohol. Chicago has more traffic-light cameras than any city in America (despite studies questioning their effectiveness), restricts cell phone use while driving, and it’s quickly moving toward a creepy public surveillance system similar to London’s.

Chicago isn’t alone, of course. Many of America’s big cities are moving toward a suffocating sort of paternalism. Chicago’s just the worst…

In cities such as San Francisco, Seattle and Portland, Ore., this embrace of “for your own good” paternalism has at least been offset by a more tolerant attitude on issues such as gay rights, or taking an approach to drug use that’s more oriented toward treatment than punishment. In many cities, it may soon be easier to smoke a joint than a cigarette.

Chicagoans, however, get hit from both sides: A City Council oriented toward the blue state public health fanaticism of cities such as New York or San Francisco, and a more reddish state legislature still prone to occasional bouts of moral prudery.

Read the whole thing here, and a laughably terrible response here (already linked in the sidebar).

Christopher Flavelle has a solid article (with video) in Slate today examining New York’s calorie count mandate. He gives a fair representation of both sides, and he ultimately concludes that the hypothesis that forcing nutritional on consumers will make them healthier is far from proven. Once again, I’d add only that the issue is even more complicated than it appears at first glance. To judge the measure’s effectiveness you have to measure not just what people are consuming at the restaurant, but their consumption throughout the day (or over even longer time periods). If people are compensating for their Big Macs at lunch with lighter dinners and breakfasts, then targeting behavior in restaurants is somewhat beside the point. This is the argument made in a paper [.pdf] by economists Michael Anderson and David Matsa.

I also have to take slight issue with this statement:

Yet the absence of unbiased opponents of menu labeling means that lost in the debate over Big Macs and cheesecake has been any serious consideration of whether government agencies ought to be responsible for influencing how many calories we eat.

Since by “unbiased” he appears to mean non connected to the restaurant industry, he should have mentioned the writers at Reason who’ve been hammering away at the issue. Radley Balko, Jacob Sullum, Katherine Mangu-Ward, and Steve Chapman have all been making the case against mandated calorie counts. This blog’s been covering it too, with an increasingly long string of posts.

Read Flavelle’s entire piece here.

Iowa’s statewide smoking ban goes into effect today. It goes even further than I’d realized, banning not only smoking indoors in all bars and restaurants, but also on the patio of any place that prepares food. To allow smoking in its outdoor areas, a restaurant can only serve prepackaged foods like pretzels and frozen pizza. So the state’s smokers are not only forced to go outside, they also have to eat lousy food.

Among the few places smokers can still stay inside are the casino’s, a hypocritical bit of protection for Iowa’s gambling revenues. Bar owners who see their own revenues decline won’t be offered any relief.

Previously:
Iowa’s smoking ban hypocrisy

Finding fault with chain restaurants’ nutritional information has become a new trend. The latest offender is Starbucks. Blogger Ms. Bitch Cakes notes:

When the Peach Apple Tart nutrition information became available, I posted it here. One of the comments in that blog made me realize the nutrition information couldn’t possibly be right- It stated:

120 calories (total)
12 grams of fat

I can’t believe that I missed the inconsistency of that information- I know that 1 gram of fat is 9 calories. If the 12 grams of fat are accurate, the FAT CALORIES ALONE are 108- making it impossible for the TOTAL CALORIES to equal 120.

After she wrote them, the company revised the calorie count to 280, more than twice the original listing.

This blog previously considered misleading calorie counts here and here, cast doubt on New York’s chain restaurant mandate here, and caught Starbucks with a misleading roast date here.

[Via Starbucks Gossip.]

CBS reports that Pennsylvania lawmakers have introduced legislation that would liberalize the state’s raw milk laws, allowing farmers to sell unpasteurized dairy products of all kinds, not just milk and aged cheese. If the bill passes, it will be thanks in large part to Mark Nolt, the Mennonite farmer who has been arrested, convicted, and had more $20,000 of his equipment seized by farm officials. His civil disobedience and unflinching defense of the freedom to sell directly to consumers has been admirable and it would be great to see it pay off.

Nolt’s case was the lede in my raw milk article for Reason.

Is it possible that I’m actually starting to like John Banzhaf? Earlier this week he gave a stirring, if not quite sincere, defense of free enterprise. In a press release issued on Wednesday, his Action on Smoking and Health organization confirmed the warnings of civil libertarians that the anti-smoking movement wouldn’t stop with allegedly reasonable workplace restrictions:

A clear majority wants smoking banned in all homes, even if children are not present, and even if the smoke is not drifting into an adjoining dwelling.

This could expand the latest front in the war to protect nonsmokers, says the man who started the nonsmokers’ movement by getting smoking first restricted and then banned on airplanes and then in workplaces and public places, and who is racking up victories in the battle to ban smoking in private dwellings and cars…

Since restrictions of smoking are one of the most effective — and virtually the least expensive — way to help smokers quit, it is no surprise that there is growing support for smoking restrictions, even if no nonsmokers’ health is being put at risk by the smoking, suggests Banzhaf.

I’ve suggested before that despite all the recent victories for the anti-smoking lobby, its increasingly untenable claims and restrictive proposals will open the door to blowback. Kudos to Banzhaf for helping to make my prediction a reality!

Physician Michael Siegel, with whom I disagree about workplace smoking bans but respect for his conscience and devotion to sound science, also thinks that this is a bad day for tobacco control advocates:

I must also say that ASH is making the pronouncements of smoking ban opponents look good. Many years ago, when I was lobbying for smoke-free workplace laws, opponents of these laws argued that this was just the first step: workplaces were the first step and eventually we [the antis] would be trying to get smoking banned in the home. I countered these arguments by stating no - you’re wrong - we are going to stop after getting smoking banned in the workplace. Unfortunately, it looks like I was wrong and the smoking ban opponents were correct. Thanks to ASH, all those smoking ban opponents can now say “I told you so.”

Read his entire post here.

Previously:
Please do smoke, if you like
A malodorous anniversary