Posted on 07/30/2008 5:48:27 AM PDT by Entrepreneur
LOS ANGELES (AP) - The Los Angeles City Council has approved a one-year moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in a low-income area of the city.
The moratorium unanimously approved Tuesday is a bid to attract restaurants that offer healthier food choices to residents in a 32-square-mile area of South Los Angeles.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.myway.com ...
If the poor are obese, are they really poor?
Isn't this redlining? Wouldn't a fast food restaurant chain get in big trouble if the CEO announced the chain would not build in an impoverished area?
If I owned a fast food restaurant in the impacted area, I would be cheerleading this law. The government just killed new competition.
What's coming next? Will they pass a law trying to force Ruth's Chris to open in South LA?
This really is out and out, no doubt about it, socialism.
Fast food socialism....no doubt. Social engineering to get the reuslts ‘they’ want. Social engineering always goes pear shaped because you cannot compute all the variables. But they think they are gods. Delusional I call it.
Meanwhile, gang violence in the same area is at record levels.
If they ban fast food restaurants that ban must apply to ALL restaurants.
This appears blatantly unconstitutional on it’s face.
And that's the beauty of socialism. The law of unintended consequences kicks in, and the government has to initiate more and more fixes. The slippery slope turns into a landslide, once people buy into the idea that they need to turn to the bureaucrats (elected and otherwise) to solve their problems.
How many potential jobs will be “lost” in one of the poorest areas of LA because of this boneheaded move?
These places are some of the major employers in those neighborhoods.
I would venture to say that the majority of the 'alternatives' would charge more for a meal than a fast food restaurant. If this area is so 'impoverished', they will continue to go to the fast food restaurants or stay home and eat chips. They aren't going to pay more to go to some restaurant that serves salad and grilled chicken. (Both of which, by the way, one can purchase at McDonald's.)
I just thought of one of the unintended consequendces of this Commie Leftie idiot control diktat: all the poor people are going to get in their gas guzzling smoke belching 25 year old cars, and drive into the tony neighborhoods of these Limosine Liberal perverts, and clog up the drive thru lanes of all *their* fast food places, and line up in the left hand lanes, and take over their kids favorite restaurant hang outs, and beat their kids up.
Yes, but those lost jobs are only “low paying, dead end jobs” and thus of no consequence. /sarc
These city council people need to be beaten with Thomas Sowell economic books.
They obviously haven’t been reading them, so maybe some blunt trauma would help them to understand the concepts.
I’ve been re-reading Road to Serfdom, and it’s chilling how many paragraphs could be reprinted as today’s news.
Read Councilwoman Jan Perry's SCAQMD bio. She wants to ban buses and cars too.
It probably never occurs to the polidiots that the people are obese and eat the “wrong” food for the same reason that they are poor - lack of personal discipline.
Yep, we can legislate them into making good personal choices.
Trust me. There is nothing worse for you than “Soul Food”. I grew up eating it.
Boston has that beat. The residents of the South End protested to prevent a FOOD LION from opening up.
Makes you wonder how many of thes “poor people” could have been employeed at these fast food outlets.
Yes, less freedom and choice will end obesity. Brilliant ideas.
A year from now, when the headline is “unemployment increases in poor areas”, none of the Times readers will draw the obvious connection.
The City Council has just eliminated a primary source of employment for the people whose welfare it claims to be concerned about. I suppose it will help address the obesity issue though, starving to death will take the pounds right off you.
Why? They prefer only “Whole Foods” or “Wild Oats” in their neighborhoods?
As if making people shop at the same stores they do will instill the same values...
My wife goes to Whole Foods once in a while, but I vehemently discourage it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.