In Los Angeles, driving out certain businesses is not a potential side effect -- it's a conscious policy. The city council recently prohibited the opening of fast-food outlets in the poor, 32-square-mile area known as South Los Angeles. If you're a global corporation selling inexpensive meals to go, Los Angeles has a message for you: Invest anywhere but here. Apparently a vacant lot is better than a Burger King.
Councilwoman Jan Perry believes the measure will assure the locals "greater food options." The Los Angeles Times reports she "said the initiative would give the city time to craft measures to lure sit-down restaurants serving healthier food to a part of the city that desperately wants more of them."
Of course, it could do that without punishing outlets that don't need luring. But if vegetarian and seafood restaurants didn't see the area as profitable before, this law won't change their calculations. It takes an Orwellian mindset to imagine that shutting out McDonald's and KFC will expand, not diminish, the range of dining options in South Los Angeles.
All it will accomplish, as several fast-food workers told the city council, is to deprive residents of jobs in the forbidden outlets. Does anyone think unemployment will improve their diet? Or that a community with fewer jobs will be a more inviting place for preferred restaurants?
I guess I must have missed the news stories when the City of Los Angeles decided to take it upon themselves to ban a certain type of eating establishment. .Unfortunately, a quick internet search confirmed that Chapman's reporting was indeed accurate.
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.
This sort of well meaning paternalism and nanny state policy carries with it several pitfalls that you would think that professional politicians would think about before making policy.
1) Philosophical
Is it really the role of the government to regulate obesity? There is an excellent quote that applies to this misguided policy.
A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have
If ever there was a real life example of a concept it is the City of Los Angeles trying to regulate obesity. What will the regulate next: procrastination, greed, why not regulate all the seven deadly sins. This sort of government overreach leads to all sorts of problems that will be discussed in other sections.
2) Constitutional
I don't if it violates the letter of the 14th Amendment but it certainly violates the spirit. Here is the relevant portion of the amendment.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Given that everyone is supposed to be treated equally by the law, how in the world does the City of Los Angeles justify saying that some restaurants are all right in some areas and others are not? How do they justify allowing fast food restaurants in some areas but not in others? There is no way that the City of Los Angeles is applying the law fairly and evenly. I will let the lawyers aregue the Constitution but to me at least, there is no doubt the spirit of the 14th Amendment is being violated.
3) Practical implementation.
How do you define fast food? Would a restaurant that serves burgers, salads, and other foods be classified as fast food? Fast food is a vague term. What does order does is open the government up to more corruption? Since the term is vague, it merely opens the government up to influence by those that may or may not be considered "fast food". The nightmare of this is significant. Those with political influence will have their establishment not considered fast food, and those without it will. This can easily be used by corrupt influences to make sure that competition is removed. Anyone with influence can simply use their influence to make sure that any and all potential competition be removed by classifying said competition as "fast food".
4) Will it be productive or counter productive?
As Chapman points out, just because you remove fast food restaurants doesn't mean that healthy restaurants will necessarily move in. All it will do is insure that fast food restaurants aren't going to wind up in IMPOVERISHED neighborhoods. Impoverished neighborhoods could frankly use the business, commerce and jobs that any restaurant, fast food included, brings. One thing this order will do is help slow down economy in an area desperate for an increase in economic activity.
Conclusion:
Government is not very good at much. Playing doctor should be counted among the list of things that government can't be counted on to do well. Obesity is a personal problem and I, for one, think that the individual along with their doctor should be the ones to address it. This sort of well meaning over reach leads to nothing but problems.
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