Having recently banned smoking in its restaurants, North Carolina is now considering a rule change to allow pets on restaurant patios:
North Carolina health officials are proposing a rule change that would let pets come to the table at outdoor restaurants as long as they don’t go inside or do anything else that might contaminate people’s food. [...]
On the other hand, some people don’t think restaurants should open their al fresco seating to patrons who scratch, pant, lick themselves and eat indiscriminately off the ground.
Dyrl Wood of Smithfield, an empty nester now, wrote the state to support Wake’s dog ban, though he had a Brittany spaniel for years.
“But we didn’t take the Brittany spaniel out to eat,” he said in an interview Tuesday. “My view is that you can have them and love them and care for them, and when you go out to eat you can bring them some scraps to have when you come home.
“But don’t require other people to dine with them. It’s unappetizing.”
If the rule change is approved, restaurant owners will be allowed to decide for themselves whether or not to allow pets on their patios. What a concept! It’s amazing how foreign the idea of having diverse policies is to some people. If they don’t like pets, pets shouldn’t be allowed at a single restaurant in the entire state. If they don’t like smoking, smoking needs to be banned. That’s the problem with deciding these matters politically: The “right” decision is forced onto everyone, leaving people who have different preferences with no venues in which to act on them.
For the record, this blog is pro-pooches on patios.
It’s a safe bet that I won’t like any article that begins by praising bans on smoking and transfats, and Ming Tsai’s piece for The Atlantic on Massachusetts’ new allergy regulations doesn’t disappoint. The law starts with yet another requirement for restaurant menus:
First, there has to be a blurb on every menu that asks customers, “Before placing your order, please inform your server if a person in your party has a food allergy.” In addition to promoting safety, this only makes it easier for restaurants to service customers. We’d much rather know about allergies in advance. It becomes a service nightmare when you have to redo a whole meal.
Well, pardon my language here, but no shit. If you’re dangerously allergic to a food item you should tell your server this when you order. This statement doesn’t need to be mandated. Between this, the calorie labels, the admonition to consume no more than 2,000 calories per day, and the warnings about raw meat, fish, and eggs, one wonders what page space will be left for food by the time every health lobby gets their way.
At least this is mostly harmless. The other aspects of the measure might even do some good, adding basic allergy and cross-contamination education to the safety course some restaurant staffers must already take. And Tsai’s optional binder system for tracking allergens in a restaurant’s dishes is a positive contribution. But does the fight for greater allergy awareness deserve inclusion in this paragraph? You be the judge!
Everybody should have the right to be able to eat safely in any restaurant. Going back in history, it used to be that if you had a certain color of skin, you couldn’t go into certain restaurants, then it was if you were a handicapped person you couldn’t go in, and now if you have allergies, you can’t.
This week the Oregon Senate is considering a bill to ban Bisphenol-A, or BPA, from use in products intended for children under the age of four. BPA is a common chemical in plastic containers. There is some fear that it causes harm by leaking into food and drink products. I am skeptical, as I am of most such scares, but I haven’t done enough research on the topic to have a firm opinion either way.
Writing at Blue Oregon, Kari Chisholm is sure that we should pass the ban. In fact he’d like to ban it in all food containers, not just the ones intended for children. Some of his reasoning is based on scientific research but the rest is biased towards what’s good for legislators. Here’s one of his arguments:
Smart legislators will vote for SB 1032. It’s the right thing to do, but it’s entirely possible that it could become a political issue in upcoming campaigns. When our son was born, I had never heard of BPA. But hanging around with a bunch of new parents, I quickly learned about it - and this is a major worry with young families. (Legislators who don’t have young children of their own would be smart to check in with some new parents — they may be surprised how deep the concern runs about BPA. Entire businesses have been built to help parents avoid this chemical.)
Given a choice between protecting the health and well-being of Oregon children - and protecting a bunch of out-of-state (and overseas) chemical and plastics manufacturers - I think the choice is clear. You can imagine what the attack ads will look like for those who vote against the bill.
This also isn’t about jobs. No one in Oregon produces BPA or the products affected by SB 1032.
This might all be true, but there’s nothing praiseworthy in the provincial idea that we should go ahead with the ban because the only people who would be hurt by it are non-Oregonian Americans or foreigners who are likely economically worse off than we are. It’s expedient for legislators to think that way but it’s not a principle we should encourage. (If Oregon was home to a BPA plant, would Chisholm want legislators to ignore science to protect their political prospects?)
Then he updates with this:
Over at the OLCV blog, Jon Isaacs notes that the Bisphenol-A baby-bottle ban is an opportunity for a big bipartisan accomplishment, at a time when there’s been a lot of partisan bickering and stonewalling.
I don’t even know what the point of this is supposed to be. Bipartisanship is only good if the laws that are being passed are good. It’s not good for it’s own sake. If all it does is give politicians something to point to when they’re running for re-election and cover from lobbying groups then I don’t see the value. The same blog post he links to notes that 90% of the bottles for sale in Oregon are already BPA-free anyway, suggesting that concerned parents and retailers are handling the alleged problem reasonably well on their own.
There might be good reasons to ban BPA in bottles, but after reading this Blue Oregon post I’m less convinced than ever that the decision will be based on sound science rather than on the self-interest of legislators.
“Regulation of the Day” is actually Ryan’s bag, but alcohol is mine so I’m stealing his title just this once. This regulation is from Alabama, where brewpubs (restaurants that serve beer they make themselves) face many onerous requirements, including these:
Alabama law allows for this special class of breweries, but the legal restrictions on opening and operating these businesses are enormous. This is a large reason why Alabama has only two operating brewpubs while the states surrounding us have dozens.
Let’s take a look at the restrictions on brewpubs in Alabama:
1. Must be located in an historic building
2. Must be located in a wet county that had a brewery prior to 1919
3. You can ONLY sell the beer you brew in the brewpub. You can’t sell to wholesalers or stores
4. Must have a restaurant which seats at least 80
5. Must not brew more than 10,000 barrels of beer annually
There’s no sensible justification for limiting brewpubs to historic buildings in the counties that happened to have breweries operating in 1919. It’s just a very strange law in a state that has a decidedly mixed view of alcohol.
Fortunately Free the Hops, recently successful in bringing higher alcohol beers to Alabama, is on the case pushing the Brewery Modernization Act to improve the state’s beer culture. Read all about it here.
[Via Tom Pearson, aka the Pint Pundit, who will hopefully resume blogging more after getting an enormous flood of two or three new readers from this link back.]
Nevertheless, on that fateful evening, an inspector from the New York City Department of Health cited Pegu Club, at 77 West Houston Street in SoHo, for serving the MarTEAni without telling the customer who ordered it that it contained raw egg. The notice said it was a serious infraction that required a court appearance.
Raw eggs are among the ingredients most fervently embraced by cocktail revivalists who have sought out new techniques and circled back to classic recipes. And the MarTEAni is a signature drink at a bar that is seen as a paragon of the new cocktailians.
Serving raw eggs in drinks is, thankfully, not illegal. You just have to tell customers that the drink contains them. A simple note on the menu serves as adequate warning. Unless a customer orders without looking at the menu:
The inspector reported that the customer who asked for the MarTEAni didn’t order it from the menu and that the bartender didn’t mention raw eggs were in it. But the bartender on the night of the inspection, Kenta Goto, said that no MarTEAnis were served while the inspector was present. The inspector who signed the violation sheet, Nathalie Louissaint, could not be reached for comment.
This puts a ridiculous burden on bartenders. How is one supposed to know if a customer has looked at the menu? If a regular comes in and orders the drink, must one warn him of the eggs every time in case a city inspector is watching? Rather than take these chances Pegu Club has taken the drink off the list, a loss to craft cocktail drinkers in the city.
As with many food dishes, raw eggs play an important role in giving cocktails texture. Sensitive buyers should beware and avoid egg drinks if they’re worried, just as they would avoid housemade mayonnaise or other products. For the rest of us a simple menu disclaimer should suffice.
If you’d like to try the drink in question, the recipe is here. Be sure to warn yourself about the raw egg before proceeding.
Even as a libertarian it’s hard to defend using a cell phone while driving. Nonetheless one can question whether selective bans on using cell phones are effective. A new study suggests they aren’t:
The Highway Loss Data Institute, a nonprofit organization funded by the auto insurance industry, compared monthly collision claims in four states that have banned handheld cell phone use before and after the bans took effect.
Research for the study, published Friday, was collected in New York, Washington, D.C., Connecticut, and California. Data was also collected and evaluated from nearby states that do not have such bans, for the sake of comparison. The Highway Loss Data Institute’s research indicates that car collision rates didn’t change after bans went into effect–and they didn’t change for nearby states without such bans, either.
Drivers on cell phones might just be the most visible scapegoat taking the heat for distracted drivers in general. The article is interesting throughout and suggests some neat technological fixes that could make driving safer.
Congress is considering legislation tying federal highway funds to the enactment of such bans. This is a good example of why we shouldn’t make this a federal issue: If the bans aren’t accomplishing anything, it’s better to test them out at the state level than to enforce them nationwide.
Jacob Grier’s concerns hardly amount to a hill of beans. What, precisely, is so prohibitively expensive about publishing simple calorie counts for the ingredients that restaurants use all of the time? (I would like to see fat and carb grams, too, but I suppose that’s too much to ask.) Restaurants spend far more money on less important things, like interior design and mints.
The cost of accurately measuring the number of calories can be hundreds of dollars per dish. For a large chain this isn’t a great burden, but for smaller chains this is significant. Recall the local NY pizza chain that spent $10,000 testing its pizzas just to get measurements of dubious precision. Add into this the costs of creating new menus and menu boards at all locations.
The costs will be high for vending machine operators as well. From McClatchy:
At the National Automatic Merchandising Association, which represents the vending industry, Ned Monroe, senior vice president for government affairs, said that while “we’re not opposed to calorie disclosure, we do have other concerns.”
Among them are potential legal problems _for instance, what if someone attached the wrong label to a vending machine product? He also called the provisions costly.
“The vending industry is under severe economic strain,” he said, and the one-year cost to achieve labeling is an estimated $56.4 million. About 7.5 million vending machines would need product labels, a task that’s generally done by a senior route driver.
Will the gains be worth these expenditures? Cost-benefit analysis is not a strength of calorie labeling studies, but I am skeptical given how ineffective labeling appears to be so far.
Some great news yesterday for Michael Schmidt, an Ontario raw milk dairy farmer who risked jail time challenging Canadian regulators. In a remarkable ruling, the court decided that his program by which customers by shares in cow ownership in exchange for the milk they produce is a legitimate enterprise not covered by existing law. In broader context, it seems an encouraging precedent for allowing consumers to opt out of restrictive safety regulations:
Although it is not illegal to consume raw milk in Canada, selling or distributing violates laws that require pasteurization of most commercial milk products.
The Schmidt case, which began when his farm was raided in 2006, has captivated food-rights academics and advocates in Canada, and around the world, who argue the court’s decision will ripple well beyond the raw-milk community. At its crux, they argue, the case is really about the extent to which consumers should be free to buy foods, however rarefied, and whether constitutional rights stretch as far as the grocery basket, farmer’s market and the people who own shares in – but do not live on – food-producing farms.
[Thanks to Kimberly Hartke for the tip. My article on raw milk for Reason is here, and a visit to a Virginia cow share program here.]
I love nanny-state accusations. Whenever I hear them, I know either that food industry self-interest is involved or that the accuser really doesn’t understand that our food system already is government-regulated as can be. These kinds of actions are just tweaking of existing policy, in this case to promote better health.
This is wrong on both counts. It’s extremely disingenuous to suggest that anyone against new regulations is in bed with the food industry. In many cases it’s just the opposite. The fight over calorie labeling in restaurants is a good example. Large chains were initially against it but now favor having a national standard over dealing with a mix of local statutes. As big businesses they can absorb the fixed costs of regulation more easily than regional chains. Collaboration between big government and big business at the expense of smaller firms is hardly unusual when it comes to food regulation (see NAIS for another instance of this).
Critics of the nanny state aren’t ignorant of the fact that our food supply is already heavily regulated and most would like to see many of these rules disappear. They know there’s a difference between regulations intended to prevent unequivocal harms (no one wants to get salmonella) and regulations intended to eliminate choice on matters for which people may value the trade-offs differently (eating foods cooked in trans fats, consuming more or less salt, patronizing new fast food restaurants rather than banning them). The fact that Nestle appears incapable of recognizing this difference is one reason libertarians are distrustful of giving technocrats like herself control over food policy.
Salem cigar shop owner Saadeh Hadeed was confronted in February by the Marion County Department of Human Services for the simple purpose of needing to file for an exemption to the smoking ban put into effect in January 2009. Soon after filing his application with the department, he received a letter from DHS telling him that his request for an exemption was denied. This questionable decision was because the business, Aava Cigar and Wine, was not seen as “stand alone,” meaning that it is connected to other businesses in the area.
Yet, the smoke shop was originally built as a “stand alone” store and encompassed later by Lancaster Mall with only a single entrance opening to one of the mall’s courtyards and the remaining entrances opening to the outside area. The business also has a three-fan ventilation system to redirect smoke from the store to be released outside, above the roof of the shop. Since finding out that an exemption was needed for Aava’s, the shop has not allowed smoking on its premises, bringing sales down by $1,200 to $1,400 a week.
Another study has found that the calories listed for items in some restaurants are often inaccurately low:
Measured energy values of 29 quick-serve and sit-down restaurant foods averaged 18% more calories than the stated values. Likewise, measured energy values of 10 frozen meals purchased from supermarkets averaged 8% more calories than stated on the label.
That’s not surprising. What’s interesting is that this isn’t necessarily due to intentional deception. It may be in part an unintended consequence of FDA regulation:
The authors also note that the US Food and Drug Administration allows up to 20% excess energy content but weight must be no less than 99% of the stated value. This might lead manufacturers to add more food to the package to insure compliance with the weight standards and thereby exceed the stated energy content.
In case you missed it during the holidays, the latest study regarding mandated calorie posting at restaurants does not make it out to be an effective policy.
I have an op/ed in today’s Oregonianarguing for amendments to the state smoking ban. The law is supposed to exempt cigar bars, but as written the requirements are so pointlessly strict that very few places qualify.
Previously: Semi-coincidentally, I had another anti-ban op/ed in the Oregonian exactly one year ago. Here’s a piece from a month later describing the last night of legal smoking at the Horse Brass. And if you think Oregon’s smoking ban is preventing thousands of heart attacks, read this.
(Also, why the hell does the O insist on cropping columnist photos so close? I intentionally sent in a correctly proportioned photo so they wouldn’t have to mess with it, but mess with it they do.)
I don’t know much about Virginia Governor-elect Robert McDonnell, but I already like him far more than his paternalist predecessor Tim Kaine. One of the first items on his agenda is privatizing the state’s horrendous liquor stores:
[...] the commonwealth currently only has about 300 ABC stores to serve nearly 8 million people, or about one per 27,000 people. The District, in contrast, has more than 500 stores. D.C. consumers are much better served with broader selection, greater convenience and lower prices. Many Virginians, particularly the half-million or so who live inside the Beltway, travel into the District to buy spirits, costing Virginia revenue.
Virginia’s ABC stores are a tower of mediocrity. They are centrally managed retail outlets that would have been palaces in the Soviet Union, but today they are anachronistic. They offer highly limited choices, often lacking exciting new brands or those with a cult following. Staff members generally aren’t knowledgeable about how to mix drinks or make cocktails. And the prices are artificially high because there is no competition: The state decides what to charge.
That’s from Garrett Peck, whose book The Prohibition Hangover arrived at my apartment last week. It’s now at the top of my to-read pile.
McDonnell was also an opponent of the Virginia smoking ban, believing that smoking policies were another issue best left to the free market. If he can weaken the ban and eliminate the ABC liquor monopoly I’ll gladly light a stogie and sip a rare bourbon in his honor next time I’m in the Old Dominion.
Update 11/9/09: It’s been pointed out that McDonnell has a paternalist streak too, at least when it comes to the bedroom. See this Washing Post editorial about his early conservative views, which though they may have cooled still have him opposing same-sex marriage.
Forget raw milk. The big new conflict is over raw oysters:
In an effort to reduce cases of a rare, but potentially fatal, bacterial illness contracted from raw oysters, the FDA announced new rules this month that will require any oyster served from April through October to undergo a sterilization process before it can be sold in restaurants or on the market.
The rule will essentially eliminate raw oysters — at least as Louisianans know them — from restaurant menus for seven months of the year. Even oysters that will eventually be cooked during those months would have to go through the same cleansing process before being added to any dish, a move some say would undermine the culinary integrity of some of New Orleans’ most famous delicacies.
The illness in question is serious but rare, and primarily affects only those with weakened immune systems:
The vibrio vulnificus disease, the target of the FDA initiative, affects about 30 individuals per year nationwide who eat raw oysters from Gulf Coast. About half of those who get the disease, which invades the bloodstream and can cause a severe fever and skin lesions, eventually die.
But those most at risk from vibrio are people who already have immune system disorders, such as AIDS, cancer, kidney disease, diabetes or alcohol abuse.
As is typical of the FDA, the agency is choosing coercion over education and ignoring the right of adults to take a calculated risk in pursuit of culinary delicacies. The new rules will also favor large oyster operations and hurt small businesses, due to the large capital investments required to sterilize the oysters. It will surely lead to a robust black market in unsterilized oysters too.
The rule won’t take effect until 2011, so there’s still some chance to save raw oysters from the FDA’s overreach.
Hot on the heels of the FDA’s ban on flavored cigarettes (menthol excluded, of course), other governments are taking even more drastic steps against flavored tobacco. First Canada:
Canada has banned the manufacture, importation and sale of most flavored cigarettes and small cigars, which have been slammed as little more than an enticement to get children to start smoking. [Again, menthol excluded.]
The law, which came into effect on Thursday, was backed by both government and opposition lawmakers. It also bans tobacco advertising in newspapers and magazines, closing a loophole that had allowed ads in publications that claimed they were read only by adults.
The council, by a count of 46-1, voted to ban the sale of all flavored tobacco in the city, with the exception of tobacco used in pipes and hookahs. This goes a step further than the recent FDA ban, which banned flavored cigarettes (including cloves, but not menthol), because it bans flavored little cigars and chewing tobacco. Mayor Bloomberg has 10 days to decide to sign or veto the measure. If signed, the ban could go into effect in 120 days.
These bans are, in essence, forbidding the processing of tobacco to make it taste good. This sets a dangerous precedent for premium cigars. Might cask-aged cigars be next? Why allow leaves to be cured at all? After all, the aging process “masks” the harsh flavors of tobacco just as surely as adding a dollop of fruit-flavor does.
In my previous post about the FTC’s new guidelines for bloggers I wondered whether the new rules would apply to Twitter. According to the FTC, they do:
As for Twitter, the FTC isn’t letting you get a pass with the excuse that 140 characters–Twitter’s famous text limit–is simply too short. “There are ways to abbreviate a disclosure that fit within 140 characters,” Cleland said. “You may have to say a little bit of something else, but if you can’t make the disclosure, you can’t make the ad.”
That’s funny, when I mention liking a product on Twitter, I didn’t know I am “making an ad.” I thought I was expressing an opinion to the people who follow my feed.
Lots of my tweets, I mean ads, are in technical violation of this rule. I go to tastings and dinners all the time. I’m going to one tonight, in fact. If a few hours from now I post something like “This cocktail with Brand X is delicious!” without adding that they gave me the drink for free, I could be fined for not making the disclosure.
Of course I’m not so much of an internet celebrity (alas!) that the big bad FTC is going to spend time reading my tweets. But it’s silly make this activity illegal and it raises the prospect that people will use FTC complaints as a way to get revenge against bloggers and Twitterers they don’t like. Like Jeff Jarvis, I would rather have a messy, unregulated, and free internet than an internet that’s aggressively sanitized by the government busybodies.
Jacob Grier is a freelance writer, barista, mixologist, and magician in Portland, OR. He writes, eats, and drinks a lot. His articles have appeared in The Washington Post, Reason Online, The Oregonian, and other publications.
Jacob Grier is a freelance writer, barista, mixologist, and magician in Portland, OR. He writes, eats, and drinks a lot. His articles have appeared in The Washington Post, Reason Online, The Oregonian, and other publications.
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