L.A. "bans" fast-food restaurants

[Elano]

The City Council is putting South Los Angeles on a diet.
The 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 action 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.

The yearlong moratorium is intended to give the city time to attract restaurants that serve healthier food.

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 Pudzer, 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 of the ordinance, said Andrew Casana, a spokesman for the association.

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."
Some customers said they weren't sure limiting fast food was a good idea.

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's the view that 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.

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 lowers levels of good cholesterol and increases bad cholesterol.

The fast-food moratorium falls under the council's purview of land-use planning.

"We want to ensure developable land is developed to provide choices," Perry said. "There is not a lot of food choice in South L.A. If people want to go grocery shopping or to a full-service, sit-down restaurant, this is something that is not readily available."

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.

Fast-food restaurants have found themselves in the frying pan in a number of cities. Some places, including Carmel-by-the Sea and Calistoga, have barred "formula" restaurants altogether.

Others have placed a cap on them. Arcata allows a maximum of nine fast-food eateries. Others have prohibited the restaurants in certain areas.

Most initiatives were designed to preserve a city's historic character. The Los Angeles bid is one of the few that cite residents' health.

[WestCoasta]

ok....

kinda stupid, no need to tell people what they can and can't eat

[.:DaYg0sTyLz:.]

first off, its no NEW fast food restaurants. LA doesnt really have much room for new anything lol. The idea of having healthier food for people...especially in lower income neighborhoods is great. But lets be real, all this shit is gonna do is create more business for the fast food restaurants that are already there. Saying that current fast food restaurants offer healthy items on the menu now, is bullshit lol. Most of the time those items arent that healthy...not to mention, those items dont ever seem to make the $1 menu. If youre fuckin broke...are u gonna get the double cheeseburger for $1, or the grilled chicken sandwich for $4?

[Don Jacob]

good call, fuckin shouldn't be eatin' wendy's and carl's jr. all the time.

[Doggystylin]

whatever, there's plenty already anyways

[OG Hack Wilson]

saw this on Jimmy Kimmel the other night


they were going up to any fatass and asking them to sign a fake pettition

[D-Stress]

ok....

kinda stupid, no need to tell people what they can and can't eat

[Now_Im_Not_Banned]

^unfortunately, people are too stupid to make the right choices on their own...

[WestCoasta]

^ so what?  that's their problem

you think the government should tell you where you can eat?

[Sikotic™]

If anyone thinks this is gonna change anything, they're retarded.

[Invincible]

Fuck that. If people can't keep their fast food intake at a reasonable level, thats their problem. If they wanna be fat, then let them be fat. If they want to dig themselves an early grave, let them.

[herpes]

It a societal problem.  In America we are trained at a young age to have everything instantly so no one will take the time out to cook a healthy meal.  I can't wait for this country to collapse

[Sikotic™]

Niggers don't know how to live so we must enforce laws to teach them like retards and kindergartners.

[Don Jacob]

Niggers don't know how to live so we must enforce laws to teach them like retards and kindergartners.

lol.

[QuietTruth]

ok....

kinda stupid, no need to tell people what they can and can't eat

Oh yes they can. What will they think of next?













You CAN'T BAN fuckin' restaurants, what the hell is this shit? How ridiculous! Mannnnnnnnnnnnnnn. Everybody needs to calm down about this fuckin' healthy food shit. Shrinking the sizes, and amounts, it's all bullshit. Now banning fast food??? LMAO! Yo, I don't know man.