The California Fast-Food industry is facing a significant regulatory push aimed at fighting obesity in the state. Recent measures include a requirement, beginning in 2011, to provide calorie counts of every item found on menus. Furthermore, last week, the City of San Francisco passed what is being referred to as the “Happy Meal ban”, which restricts restaurants from including toys in meals that do not meet nutritional standards. In Southern California, Los Angeles is now considering legislation to restrict the establishing of new fast-food restaurants in certain obesity prone neighborhoods. In response to the proposed L.A. measures, the California Restaurant Association has been lobbying the city, highlighting the economic contributions that fast-food restaurants provide in the form of jobs, career training and entrepreneurial opportunities.
Read the entire story by Sharon Bernstein of the Los Angeles Times.
