Community Coalition's Full Response to William Saletan

August 1, 2008

South LA Deserves Healthy Choices

By Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Executive Director of Community Coalition

The ban on building new fast food restaurants in South Central Los Angeles has nothing to do with restricting an individual’s “free choice,” as conservative opponents like, William Saletan like to argue in order to push their antiquated, knee-jerk opposition to government regulation, even when it flies in the face of common sense.

In fact, the ordinance is not about the choices people make at all, but about the choices people are given.

People who attack this ordinance as an assault on free choice are under an illusion that residents of South Los Angeles even have a choice. What kind of choice is it if the predominant options we have in our neighborhood are greasy, unhealthy fast food restaurants? What kind of choice do we have when our neighborhoods are filled with liquor stores rather than full service grocery stores? Our choices are not between healthy and unhealthy, but often between bad and worse

With the current economic climate and high price of gas, South LA residents have even fewer choices than ever before as traveling outside the community for fresh quality food, like many residents are forced to do everyday, becomes even more unfeasible.

The picture of fast food restaurants and liquor stores on every block is not an exaggeration either. According to the Los Angeles Times, South LA has the highest percentage of fast food restaurants than in any part of the City. Almost 1 out of every 2 restaurants in South LA are fast food compared to 1 out 5 in West LA. Other independent reports from health organizations such as Community Health Council in Los Angeles put the number and disparity even higher.

The same kind of story holds true for liquor stores and other kinds of nuisance businesses. This is why Community Coalition supports City Councilwoman Jan Perry’s ordinance, which by the way does not ban the “sale of food to adults” as Mr. Saletan overzealously and incorrectly stated. It prohibits the construction of any new fast food restaurants for a year in order to open land and space to provide an opportunity for other healthier types of options to enter the community.

This ordinance embraces the role and responsibility of governments through zoning and other regulatory measures to ensure the health and safety of all its residents, not just those in prosperous communities that know how to use city zoning procedures to block yet another Starbucks from entering the community or from neighbors putting up a yard sign.

The interesting thing though is that opponents don’t seem to have a problem when government regulation is used to protect and enrich the lives of the wealthier. But somehow poor people are expected to accept what they have as good enough. We should accept the salads offered at the Jack-in-the-Box, rather than expect in actual sit down restaurant that serve fresh, quality, healthy foods. Though we should also point out here that many fast food restaurants may have salads on their regular menu, but they don’t offer them in South LA.

No one is playing the victim here. We are not asking for anything more than what every person wants – a healthy and safe place to live and raise our families. While it is easy to do a 30-second Google search and say we don’t know what we are talking about, it is entirely another reality when you live here.

In fact, we cordially invite Mr. Saletan to South LA to see for himself and to have lunch with us.

Community Coalition is non-profit organization in South Los Angeles working to address the causes of addiction, violence and crime in our community.

I agree that Saletan's rant was misleading and with the intent to stir the pot but I also believe this zoning law will have NO IMPACT since it does NOT address the security issues in the area.

Tesco TALKED about opening markets in the area but hasn't yet since their research indicated that markets in this area cannot break even.

This law doesn't help a market break even. Thus no new markets in the area.

There's still the matter of attracting businesses to the area, and the public perception of what these neighborhoods are like is a major handicap to that.

I would propose incentives to build that improve the bottom lines of the businesses you want to attract. Start with offering leases on city land that cost a dollar (or some other token amount) a year for ten years. Give the construction companies a percentage break on their taxes for every job they do in the area. Give them incentives to hire people from the area.

Once businesses build and move in, start offering tax incentives to offset the cost of increased security. How about no city or county taxes for the first three years of operation? That should be long enough for any grocery store or restaurant to either succeed or fail.

There are times when getting financially creative is all that's needed to get things rolling. The small town I lived in for five years converted a main street full of crumbling buildings, biker bars and vacant lots into a bustling destination for the entire area in that time, merely by giving businesses a city tax holiday.

While the issues in Los Angeles are orders of magnitude more serious, such measures can provide a springboard for locally owned non-chain business to get a foothold. When you know the name of the guy that runs the bakery, you feel more grounded in your neighborhood.

Good ideas but the city is in major debt and doesn't have money for REAL ideas. This is why they passed this zoning law that will have no impact.

Well, the city is taking no real financial risk here. They aren't making any money off the land now, it's just sitting vacant. By offering tax incentives, they're no worse off than they were before.

Building expenses would be covered by the businesses moving in, and they would have to pay their utility bills themselves. In fact, if the plan succeeds, then the city should have a nice little revenue stream in the future when the tax holiday goes away.

I still think it could be win win.

All the markets LEFT the area because NONE of them was even breaking even. The security risks in the area have NOT improved so why would a market NOW make money in this area when historically they have not?

The city DOES make money off of the land when a Fast food place is build. They would NOT make any money off of a market since the market would NOT make any money and would close down after a year of losing money every month.

To me a better idea would be to have weekend 'farmer markets' in the area and have the city supply all the security. If enough people go then the market continues. If NOT than this means that people in the area do NOT want good food and thus let them die from obesity!

Farmers markets tend to go over like lead balloons in depressed areas unless there's a real commitment to education that goes with them. That's outrageously expensive - nutritionists don't work for free.

As for the markets leaving, sure they did. All of the national chain markets left. They weren't making any money...or enough to suit their boards of directors.

No one ever said that any of this was going to be easy. It never is. Still cities like New York and Chicago managed to go from being terrifying dumps full of scary shit to being reasonable cities to live in. It took time, and Chicago still has a long way to go. The South Side of this city is a freakin' nightmare. I don't hear about either city throwing up its hands and giving up altogether, either.

Jazz, you're right. Nothing is ever going to work for L.A. and there's no point in trying. Let's just bulldoze the entire area and plant orchards.

Jazz,

Or just have the cops look the other way when illegal aliens show up with cartons of fruit.

LA doesn't want to clean up the area for political reasons. Cleaning up the area means putting people's children in jail. Those children would be the gang members. People in the area only want the OTHER PEOPLE'S children that are gang members to be in jail, their little darling are just misunderstood kids!

HEY, I'm SOMEWHAT joking here. Everytime there is a major effort to deal with the gangs the city and police get shit for the major effort. It is lose \ lose for city leaders.

I put farmers markets in quotes since I didn't mean the type of farmer markets that sell designer veggies to the rich! I just meant a standard market that sells day old produce for a fair price.

I also NEVER said LA should just give up only that this zoning law will have NO impact. I have seen nothing so far to change that view.

Well LA already has special order #41 that prevent the cops from letting the Feds know someone is illegal. Sad.

I'm sorry. Is there a "greasy and unhealthy" limitation on this zoning provision that Saletan's quote ignores? The LAT says:

"any establishment which dispenses food for consumption on or off the premises, and which has the following characteristics: a limited menu, items prepared in advance or prepared or heated quickly, no table orders and food served in disposable wrapping or containers."

Why can't the law be applied to a "fast food" place that had a small mixed health/unhealthy menu? One can after all get baked potatoes and salads at Wendys, a lot healthier than one might eat at let's say "sit down" places like Applebees.

You can "sit down" at "fast food" restaurants, obviously. The LAT piece linked by Saletan's original piece also notes Maria's Italian Kitchen is an opponent. You can see the potential problems here. Near my work, there are carts and trucks with "limited" menus, made in advance or "heated quickly" that serve Mid-Eastern and Jamaican food. If a hole in the wall served such items, self-service, how exactly isn't the law applicable? In fact, why wouldn't pizzeria's not factor in? Chinese buffets?

Likewise, you are in fantasy land if you think many "sit down" restaurants are that healthy. They often serve too big portions, have loads of fat, large calorie laden desserts, multi-courses (your local diner special, e.g.), and so forth. See the recent Doonesbury story on posting calories in a "sit down" restaurant chain, that was not self-service, items coming on actual plates.

Finally, "any" seems to me -- especially given how broad the terms are -- seems overbroad. Put aside the fact "fast food" (as usually understood) franchises are often opportunities for immigrants and other minority groups (not just working, but ownership). The law applies to any number of "fast food" places that should be an option. As a health measure etc. it is just not narrowly tailored enough.

It very well might be useful to carefully limit and regulate places like McDonalds and such, which appears to be the idea. But, the law seems like overkill and likely to have some unintended consequences.

-j