Life and Business

Let’s pass a federal law that says everyone must be a certain weight, must be healthy and have all the money they need to live comfortably. Sounds Orwellian, but solves many social issues. Impossible you say, don’t be so sure.

The restaurant industry, already in an economic tailspin from escalating food costs and fewer diners, is fighting local legislation on two major fronts, with more to follow.

In San Francisco, a new ordinance was passed that says employers must pay an amount per employee hour into a health care fund. While there are formulas and eligibility requirements, the amount is about $1.04 per hour. This is on top of an earlier ordinance that was passed requiring employers to pay a minimum hourly wage of almost $10 per hour, including tipped employees!

In New York, a recent ordinance requires multi-unit restaurants to post the amount of calories in each menu item. While on the surface it may seem cumbersome, but doable; look a little closer. What if the consumer decides to upsize their meal? If you advertize it, you must post it. What if one diner chooses a meal #2 with Coke and the other diner chooses meal #2 with an iced tea? That is a significant difference in calories.

Restaurants attempting to comply have found it almost impossible to meet the letter of the law. Fines are beginning to be levied for “menu items” that combine several individual items already listed with their calories, but not the total for a “meal” as a menu item. Obviously, the restaurant industry has gone to court to try to stop local enforcement.

Ultimately, who pays the costs for all these laws, ordinances and the cost to administer them? The consumer. However, the consumer doesn’t see the real costs until restaurants have been forced to absorb much of the cost until they can fold the costs into menu pricing. New menus are costly to produce and almost always after the additional expense has been paid and absorbed.

Eventually all costs get to the consumer. As the citizens of San Francisco are finding out, the costs have caused restaurants to fail, tourists to complain and eating out is even more expensive there than other cities. The well intended ordinance is taking a toll on tourism, tax revenue, jobs and previously notable bay area food fame.

In my mind there is a bigger issue here. How far can we carry regulation into our daily lives? Should schools be fined for not teaching people that a Big Mac has a lot more calories than a small salad? How many languages does the restaurant industry have to post these notices in? Maybe we should fine restaurants who serve more than 800 calories to any one person? Better yet, let’s fine anyone who eats over 2600 calories per day.

For health care ordinances, let’s also fine people who don’t go to the doctor when they might be sick. Or tax people who choose not to enroll in the health care plan offered. Oh yes, maybe we should fine those individuals who choose to spend their new found increased government mandated earnings on vacations, fancy clothes and $500 cell phones instead of enrolling in the health care programs.

The real issue is one of personal choices. Slowly it seems we are allowing government to intercede into our daily lives and the choices we make. Besides the cost for bad choices being passed along equally among everyone, it seems a little tiny piece of freedom is whittled away with each attempt to make us “better”.

Personal responsibility for our bad choices is also disappearing. Let those who do the right things and make the right choices pay for the minority who don’t. Does that sound like what our forefathers intended?

Ooops… time to get off the soap box…. I just spilled the hot coffee that I ordered. Need to sue someone!

Multi-concept restaurant owner, author and marketing consultant. Built several restaurants into successful ventures that continue to grow and prosper today. Author of the best selling ebook titled The Restaurant Ebook - A Guide to Keeping Your Dreams Off the Chopping Block. Written many articles and other mini restaurant ebooks on various subjects.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Burden on Restaurants to Make You Skinny