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The L.A. ban on new fast food restaurants in poor neighborhoods.

Isn't it outrageous to limit only the restaurants that cater to poor people?

The moratorium?s definition of a fast food business is any stand-alone restaurant that dispenses food, to stay or to go, and that has ?a limited menu, items prepared in advance or prepared or heated quickly, no table orders, and food served in disposable wrapping or containers.?

The linked NYT article focuses on the way the definition includes "places of more culinary interest," like those with "cooks from Mexico and Central America making lamb barbacoa and pupusas" and those that make "a high-quality hot dog from cattle raised on pasture, served with fresh grilled onions on top."

The "high-quality hot dog" woman whines: ?Our policy makers abhor nuance and the subtle but distinct qualities that differentiate fast food from food that can be served fast.?

As if the law isn't already ridiculously vague and hard to apply! You think it would be better with more "nuance" about where your pulverized cow once grazed and whether your onions were ever frozen?

The article does eventually get around to quoting someone sensible, Joe R. Hicks, a radio talk show host:

?The crime in all of this is that people are sitting around meddling into the very minutiae of what people are putting in their mouths,? he said.

He argues that the ban assumes the 500,000 people who live in South Los Angeles are intellectually incapable of deciding what to eat.

?It?s insulting, and you could almost infer a racial insult out of the interference,? he said.

Almost.

ADDED: For breakfast:

... three fried-egg sandwiches loaded with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise... two cups of coffee, a five-egg omelet, a bowl of grits, three slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar and three chocolate-chip pancakes.

That's what Michael Phelps eats.

Full post as published by Althouse on August 13, 2008 (boomark / email).