The New York Times reports that Chicago city council may consider a ban on the use of "trans-fats" in local restaurants.
Edward M. Burke, who has served on the Chicago City Council since 1969, when cooking oil was just cooking oil, is pressing his colleagues to make it illegal for restaurants to use oils that contain trans fats, which have been tied to a string of health problems, including clogged arteries and heart attacks.
If approved, nutrition experts say, the ban will be the first in a major city, following the lead of towns like Tiburon, Calif., just north of San Francisco, where restaurant owners have voluntarily given up the oils. In truth, while the proposal’s prospects are uncertain, Chicago officials have been on a bit of a banning binge these days in what critics mock as City Hall’s effort to micromanage residents’ lives in mundane ways.
The aldermen voted in April to forbid restaurants to sell foie gras. They have weighed a proposal to force cabbies to dress better. And there is talk of an ordinance to outlaw smoking at the beach.
Even Mayor Richard M. Daley, who often promotes bicycle riding and who not long ago appointed a city health commissioner who announced he was creating health “report cards” for the mayor and the aldermen, has balked at a trans-fat prohibition as one rule too many.
“Is the City Council going to plan our menus?” Mayor Daley asked.
But Mr. Burke, pointing to increases in obesity, diabetes and heart disease, is unapologetic. He does not profess that better oils would suddenly make Chicago skinny but says that they would at least begin to alleviate some of the related coronary concerns.
“If it were just about adults, I would say, ‘O.K., we should butt out,’ ” Mr. Burke said in an interview. “But youngsters are assuming diets that are unhealthy.”
And if the City Council had agreed to simply steer clear of peoples’ bad habits, said Mr. Burke, an influential alderman who long pushed to ban smoking in indoor public spaces, Chicago might never have passed the smoking ban that went into effect this year (it gives taverns and restaurants with bars until 2008 to comply). “We may be the last civilized city in the world to ban it,” he said.
Under Mr. Burke’s proposal, establishments that failed to remove “artificial trans fats” from their kitchens would be fined $200 to $1,000 a day. . . .
Faced with criticism, Mr. Burke said he was willing to consider changes to his proposal as it heads to a City Council committee, where its fate is anyone’s guess. If mom-and-pop restaurants would be unfairly harmed, he said, perhaps he would agree to rewrite the legislation to single out only fast-food chains.
This nanny-state business is going too far.
Well, just kidding. I think.
One Fat to line them
One Fat to cast a pall
And in the darkness bind them
Nah. If you haven't figured it out by now, any claim of 'public good' trumps the Constitution.
Nah. If you haven't figured it out by now, any claim of 'public good' trumps the Constitution.
I look forward to seeing the evidence that the original understanding of the Commerce Clause would have excluded this measure from a state's police powers.
Nevertheless, I am appalled as a Chicagoan that any such ordinance could even be proposed, let alone passed. First they came for the smokers, then they came for the peanut oil. Sweet Jeebus, please preserve us a few of our unhealthy pleasures.
I was ripping into the "public good" comment. I don't generally pay attention to who says what in the comments, it's too hard to keep track of that. That's why I generally avoid referring to anyone in my posts, I just quote the text I want to comment on and add my part.
Except, of course, for the exact same sort of people who pass laws like the trans fat law, who think you should be required to do so.
I'm happy to have smoking banned in indoor public accommodations, but the notion that any city that fails to do so is "uncivilized" is very funny. True civilization would come when people realize that their smoking aggravates others' breathing conditions and creates a bad odor. Smokers would voluntarily cease to perform publicly an action that creates significant problems for others and that is of limited benefit to the individual. Back when manners were gendered, civilized men wouldn't smoke in the presence of women and children. (Of course, women also were legally prohibited in many places from smoking publicly themselves.)
A ban mimics genuine civility by enforcing it through state action.
And it's for their own good. And the children's. I don't know why this isn't being done.
Also: there's a Republican on the Chicago City Council?