Big government doesn’t just put the squeeze on your wallet these days. If you live in South Los Angeles, it’s pinching your love handles like a giant pair of bureaucratic calipers.
Los Angeles Councilwoman Jan Perry, in order to form a more healthy district, has proposed a law that would put a moratorium on new fast-food restaurants for one year. It was approved unanimously by a committee and must pass the full council in order to limit food choices for the citizens of South Central for their own good.
Perry started from the premise that there are no food options other than fast food in South Los Angeles. The limited options cause a health problem, she claims, which she is forced to remedy by using government ordinances, which would expand choice by prohibiting an entire segment of restaurants from moving in. The logic is lost on me.
As is the case with most justifications for heavy-handed nanny-statism, the councilwoman’s claims aren’t actually true.
Although there is certainly evidence of disproportionate health problems in South L.A., when compared with other parts of the city, there’s also evidence that it’s not a lack of choices that’s creating them. Perry’s own research shows that fast-food restaurants account for 45 percent of restaurants in SouthL.A., which though higher than the 16 percent comprised by fast food in West L.A., still leaves 55 percent of food options that are not fast. The district is also home to several grocery store options.
Reporting on the phenomenon of “food apartheid” — this is what they’re calling it — in South L.A. is fraught with anecdotes: Citizens can’t find a salad to save their lives. They eat fried food because there’s simply nothing else. Fresh produce is out of the question.
This sloppy reporting ignores the fact that there are 14 salads available at most McDonald’s, if you count all the salads prepared with each type of chicken. Newspaper reports say the district also boasts a Taco Bell (9 options on a low-fat menu), KFC (6 salads), and Quizno’s (5 salads, separate low-cal menu). The fast-food industry’s shift toward healthier options in recent years has yielded a decent array of healthy choices for very low prices.
Perry’s misuse of government power to engineer the eating habits of her constituents will do nothing but eliminate affordable food options and depress the local economy. The council is already discussing what will be done with vacant lots left behind as the law drains the area of prospective businesses, with that familiar sucking sound at the end of a cold McDonald’s milkshake.
Banning one kind of restaurant is also unlikely to encourage its replacement with the kind of restaurant Perry would prefer. One South L.A. blogger commenting on the possible ban suggested a “shooting moratorium” might be more helpful:
“Few non franchise chi-chi restaurants are going to locate in such areas because they can’t afford the insurance and why should they spend the extra money? Who the heck would want to under such circumstances? I wouldn’t. All such a ban would do is depress the area further, deprive area kids of jobs and make gang-banging more attractive to some.” (luoamerican.com/)
And, how about this for the cherry on your delicious, fatty irony sundae? A look at Perry’s legislative career reveals that she has been voting for years to make healthy food more expensive for her low-income District 9 constituents.
In 2006, she backed an “ordinance prohibiting any buyer of a grocery store larger than 15,000 square feet from firing any employee in the first 90 days without sufficient ‘cause,’ ” according to an L.A. Times editorial:
Council member Jan Perry told The Times this week that the ordinance is intended to protect the “vulnerable.” Really? How about the vulnerable people in her district who would like a job? Or the slightly less vulnerable people who would like more convenient grocery shopping? After the 1992 riots, activists begged for grocery stores to do business in South L.A. Yet now the council requires giant retailers to survive an “economic impact report” before being allowed to operate in even the most blighted of neighborhoods.
In 2004, she backed an ordinance to keep one of America’s lowest-priced grocers (Wal-Mart) out of the area, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal.
By attempting to ban Wal-Mart, Perry was not only depriving her district of that store’s low prices, but also of the ripple effect Wal-Mart can have on area groceries. According to economic analysts, the price of groceries drops an average of 10-15 percent in markets Wal-Mart enters.
Someone should tell Perry that the last thing the people of District 9 need in their diets is more of her ill-advised laws. Squeezing capitalism, cutting down on choices, and starving the economy will do nothing for the health of any city.
Mary Katharine Ham is online editor of The Washington Examiner and a Fox News analyst.
