Happy Meal toy ban prompts ban on bans in other states
Originally posted by the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco banned toys in Happy Meals, and the nation scoffed. Now that the nation is done laughing, it’s legislating.
Politicians in Arizona and Florida are pushing legislation prohibiting cities and counties in their states from casting cheap plastic figurines out of their cardboard, grease-stained fast food boxes. Yes, that’s right. They’re banning toy bans.
Legislation recently passed the Arizona House to bar cities or counties from banning any kind of incentive offered by restaurants. That includes not just toys, but a very long and detailed list of other goodies including contests, coupons, trading cards, coloring books, admission tickets, ride tokens and crayons.
Not, mind you, that any city or county in Arizona had actually proposed replicating San Francisco’s toy ban. And you thought our politicians were experts at time wasting!
“We wanted to be proactive in making sure it didn’t take place here,” explained Steve Chucri, president of the Arizona Restaurant Association, which lobbied for the bill. “To arbitrarily say a toy in a Happy Meal or crayons given to a child in a restaurant is going to predestine them to only having fatty foods in laughable.”
Supervisor Eric Mar wrote San Francisco’s legislation which prohibits toys being offered in meals unless the food meets certain nutritional standards.
A Nebraska senator recently proposed a similar ban as San Francisco’s, though the idea was destroyed faster than Chicken McNuggets in the hands of a hungry 5-year-old.
P.S. Mar was the subject of a withering critique of the toy ban on “The Daily Show.” Well, fair’s fair so we think Jon Stewart should send his team to Arizona for a segment on a toy ban ban. Would Chucri be game?
“If I get a phone call, I’ll think about it then, you know?” he said.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/cityinsider/detail?entry_id=85154#ixzz1HRAPv22Y
Related posts:
- San Francisco Supervisor Eric Mar’s Unpopular Ban on Happy Meals
- Thank you to Nation's Restaurant News for Quoting Bob Cutler, CEO of C3, in a Recent Article About the Happy Meal Toy Ban
- Parents Say: Ban The Toys If You Want … My Kids Will Still Ask for Happy Meals
- San Francisco Supervisors Postpone Vote on Mar’s “Toy Ban” Legislation
- Thank you to InlandSoCal.com for Quoting Bob Cutler, CEO of C3, in a Blog Post: San Fran Targets Kids' Meals, Restaurant Industry Reacts