Keep Food Legal Files Comments in Support of Washington, DC Food Trucks
Yesterday Keep Food Legal filed comments in support of Washington, DC's food trucks. We filed these comments in response to a draconian proposal by District regulators to adopt new rules that could make the popular mobile food vendors a rarity in much of the city's downtown area.
The primary issue in this third cycle of proposed regulations in the District was not complaints about the trucks themselves but about their customers. District regulators--and a small segment of the brick-and-mortar restaurant lobby--apparently believe food trucks just have too many people waiting to buy their food. Keep Food Legal focused in part on this absurd argument against food trucks in our comments:
[U]nder the [District's] so-called “ice-cream truck” rule, DCRA has long mandated that the potential customers of a mobile food vendor form a line (or queue) before a food truck may stop and serve food. DCRA has also required that a truck must leave a parking space without delay after serving the last customer in a queue. Hence, existing DCRA regulations have been an important driver of queues in places like Farragut Square because they effectively prohibit any mobile food vendor from parking and vending unless they do so at a place with a high concentration of people standing in a line.
The proposed regulations... seem designed to punish mobile food vendors because these vendors have been mindful of DCRA regulations and vend only when and where they find large numbers of potential customers standing in line to buy their food products. It would be unjust for the District to penalize mobile food vendors for complying with an absurd regulation like the ice-cream truck rule just because compliance with that absurd rule has perhaps created a fresh set of unintended consequences.
Read our complete comments here.
Our Baylen Linnekin was quoted in the Daily Caller last week on the issue of DC food trucks and their customers. Read Linnekin's remarks here.
Read our earlier comments in support of DC food trucks here. And read more about our work on food truck issues around the country here.
Keep Food Legal Submits Testimony to Vermont Legislature in Opposition to Potential Soda Tax
Yesterday, in advance of today's hearing by the Vermont legislature's House Committee on Health Care on the potential levy of a soda tax in the state, Keep Food Legal submitted written testimony in opposition to any such proposal.
In our remarks, we argue that such a tax lacks support in the scientific literature, would have negative unintended consequences for Vermonters, and would infringe on consumer choice. And we applauded governor Peter Shumlin for his longstanding opposition to soda taxes.
After going into detail about the various flaws in the scientific arguments behind a soda tax, we urged Vermont legislators to reject such a tax because it
would take millions from struggling Vermont small businesses and consumers and hand it over to the state. Even its supporters admit that the proposed Vermont beverage tax is in many ways a revenue grab. For example, the Alliance for a Healthier Vermont claims a penny-per-ounce tax in Vermont “would raise $27 million/yr (sic)” and thus help cover the “state general fund budget deficit[.]”
A beverage tax would also harm the stellar national image of Vermont—a state known throughout the country for sweet offerings like pure maple syrup and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. And if Vermont were to tax sugar-sweetened drinks that come mainly from out of state, what’s to stop other states from imposing similarly unfair taxes on real maple syrup?
Instead of cracking down on beverage makers and consumer choice, Vermont voters should urge Sen. Sanders, Sen. Leahy, and Rep. Welch to push for the federal government to stop wasting taxpayer money by subsidizing sugar and corn (which is used to make high fructose corn syrup, also known as corn sugar). Doing so would save Vermonters millions of dollars every year while getting government out of the costly, inane, and self-defeating role of both promoting sugar consumption (through taxpayer subsidies) and penalizing sugar consumption (through taxes on sweetened beverages).
Read our complete comments here. At 7:10 a.m. on Monday morning, Keep Food Legal executive director Baylen Linnekin will appear as a guest on WVMT radio--NewsTalk 620 AM--to discuss our opposition to the potential soda tax. You can listen live here.
Keep Food Legal Helps Lead Fight Against NYC's Proposed Beverage Ban
Keep Food Legal has been critical of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's outrageous proposal to ban many sweetened drinks greater than 16 ounces.
On Tuesday, July 24 Keep Food Legal executive director Baylen Linnekin appeared before the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the city agency that may adopt the ban, and spoke out against the ban on behalf of Keep Food Legal's members and supporters in New York City and across the country. You can view PowerPoint slides from Linnekin's presentation here.
Keep Food Legal also submitted written comments in opposition to the ban that same day--also on behalf of its members and supporters in New York City and beyond. An excerpt:
Keep Food Legal, on behalf of its members and supporters, opposes the Proposed Amendment of Article 81 (Food Preparation and Food Establishments) of the New York City Health Code, found in Title 24 of the Rules of the City of New York (the “proposed ban”)....
The most obvious negative intended consequence is that the proposed ban would raise the taxes of New Yorkers—and do so in a most undemocratic manner. After all, at its heart the proposed ban is a revenue “bill” to be voted on by an unelected board that is intended to compel some New Yorkers to pay higher sales taxes. This would occur because a purchase of two sixteen-ounce beverages would a cost consumer more than a purchase of one beverage greater than sixteen ounces—and because sales taxes constitute a percentage of each sale and so rise in relation to the overall price of a sale. Mayor Bloomberg, both predicting and promoting the sale of multiple beverages the proposed ban would foster, said last month that when it comes to customers seeking one beverage greater than sixteen ounces, restaurants could instead “serve it in two” purchased cups.
[...]
[T]he proposed ban would restrict food freedom of choice. Mayor Michael Bloomberg opined last month that the right to drink a large soda is not one of the “freedoms.... that the Founding Fathers fought for.” But the proposed ban is (as previously noted) a revenue bill to be voted on by an unelected board. In this way (and others), the proposed ban very much harkens back to those acts of British economic aggression against the American colonies in the 1760s and 1770s—which, like the Sugar Act, nearly always centered on unfairly taxing and restricting food choices—that led the Founding Fathers to fight the American Revolution.
At the close of Tuesday's hearing, Keep Food Legal hosted a fun and fabulous (and well-publicized and well-attended) happy hour and soda salon at the great Northern Spy Food Co., a locavore-friendly eatery in New York City's East Village.
Linnekin has also spoken out against the proposed ban in the media--including on Dennis Miller's nationally syndicated radio show--and devoted two of his recent Reason magazine weekly online columns to the proposed drink ban. You can read those here and here.
What's next for Keep Food Legal when it comes to New York City's proposed ban? Stay tuned. And if you'd like to support our work in this and other areas, we urge you to please become a member of Keep Food Legal.
Keep Food Legal Submits Comments in Support of DC Food Trucks
Washigton, DC's Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA) has long considered proposed reforms to the District's regulations that govern food trucks. When DCRA recently issued proposed regulations, most supporters of food trucks were pleased with the content. But most also believed there were still a few pieces missing, and that some potentiall hurdles in the regulations should be removed.
When DCRA opened up the regulations to public comment, Keep Food Legal jumped at the opportunity to make sure our voice (and yours) was heard. Here is an exceprt from the comments we submitted before yesterday's comment deadline:
Keep Food Legal commends DCRA for proposing many regulations that would improve the climate for mobile food vendors and consumers in the District. Keep Food Legal, on behalf of our members and supporters, urges DCRA to ADOPT the proposed regulations insofar as they do not restrict mobile food vending. We support many of the elements of the current regulations and urge DCRA to also take the following additional steps:
1) DO NOT place any restrictions on mobile vendors based in any way on the items they serve. For example, the final regulations should not discriminate against food trucks that sell sweet (rather than savory or other) items.
2) DO NOT create the proposed Vending Development Zones that would no doubt be used to limit consumer access to food sold by mobile vendors.
3) DO NOT restrict operating hours for food trucks. Any regulations pertaining to hours of operation must apply equally to both food trucks and restaurants.
4) DO amend the proposed regulations to permit the sale of alcohol beverages from food trucks.
Because Keep Food Legal supports food choice--rather than particular food choices--we also urge DCRA to consider steps to alleviate the tremendous burden its regulations (and regulations enforced by other District agencies) place on brick-and-mortar restaurants.
You can read our complete response here. We also included by reference and link a 2011 Reason magazine article on DC food truck regulations written by executive director Baylen Linnekin. In case you haven't read that piece, you can do so here.
Keep Food Legal Submits Comments to DCRA; Supports Mobile Food Vending in Washington, DC
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMMENTS OF KEEP FOOD LEGAL EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR BAYLEN LINNEKIN TO THE DEPARTMENT OF CONSUMER & REGULATORY AFFAIRS IN SUPPORT OF MOBILE FOOD VENDING
Keep Food Legal, on Behalf of Members and Supporters, Supports DCRA's Proposed Regulations Insofar as they Foster Positive Climate for Mobile Food Vending
Keep Food Legal's Baylen Linnekin Urges Amendments to Make Mobile Vending More Permissive
Says DCRA Should Lessen Regulatory Burden on Brick-And-Mortar Restaurants
To: Nicholas A. Majett, Director, Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs
From: Baylen J. Linnekin, Executive Director, Keep Food Legal
Re: Comments in Support of Washington, DC Mobile Food Vending & in Support of Proposed Regulations (with Amendments Suggested Herein)
Date: March 1, 2011
Thank you for accepting the comments of Keep Food Legal, a grassroots nonprofit incorporated in Washington, DC, on behalf of our members and supporters. Keep Food Legal is the first and only nationwide, nonprofit membership organization devoted to culinary freedom—the right of every American to grow, raise, produce, buy, sell, cook, and eat the foods and beverages of their own choosing. Keep Food Legal members and supporters hail from across the United States and are key cogs in nearly every link in the food chain: farmers, ranchers, fishermen, hunters, manufacturers, grocers, restaurateurs, tavern owners, food truck owners and operators, chefs, consumers, foodies, activists, academics, and authors.
I am the founder and executive director of Keep Food Legal. I am a lawyer, earned an advanced degree in agricultural and food law, and have written and spoken extensively on food regulation, law, and policy in general. I have written and spoken on numerous occasions against regulations that restrict the right of mobile food vendors and their customers. I have presented my research on food regulation at Harvard University School of Law; Tulane University School of Law; Chapman University School of Law; Northeastern University School of Law; Suffolk University School of Law; Boston University; Pennsylvania State University; and elsewhere. I developed and will be teaching an undergraduate course on social media and food at American University in fall 2012. My writing on food regulation has appeared in the Chapman University Law Review, Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly (forthcoming), Northeastern University Law Journal (forthcoming), the Journal of Wine Economics, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food & Drink in America (forthcoming), and elsewhere.
Keep Food Legal commends DCRA for proposing many regulations that would improve the climate for mobile food vendors and consumers in the District. Keep Food Legal, on behalf of our members and supporters, urges DCRA to ADOPT the proposed regulations insofar as they do not restrict mobile food vending. We support many of the elements of the current regulations and urge DCRA to also take the following additional steps:
1) DO NOT place any restrictions on mobile vendors based in any way on the items they serve. For example, the final regulations should not discriminate against food trucks that sell sweet (rather than savory or other) items.
2) DO NOT create the proposed Vending Development Zones that would no doubt be used to limit consumer access to food sold by mobile vendors.
3) DO NOT restrict operating hours for food trucks. Any regulations pertaining to hours of operation must apply equally to both food trucks and restaurants.
4) DO amend the proposed regulations to permit the sale of alcohol beverages from food trucks.
Because Keep Food Legal supports food choice--rather than particular food choices--we also urge DCRA to consider steps to alleviate the tremendous burden its regulations (and regulations enforced by other District agencies) place on brick-and-mortar restaurants. As our executive director Baylen Linnekin wrote in a Reason magazine article on food trucks last year (an article that we incorporate into our comments by reference and link):
Clearly, Washington[, DC]’s restaurants could stand some serious deregulation. Short of that, there are more immediate reforms that could be adopted within the existing regulatory structure. One way to eliminate unconscionable regulatory delays like the one [Liberty Tree restaurant] faced would be for the D.C. government to implement a presumption of legality for launching a business. Under such a scenario, regulators could permit restaurants that have incorporated and passed a health inspection to open for business in the event of any government delay of more than a few business days. The District government would immediately begin earning sales and income taxes from the restaurant and its employees—rather than having to wait months or more—while restaurant owners and employees could begin working and benefiting themselves and the broader economy. And the city could still close a restaurant it found to be unsafe and could still demand that the restaurant fix any documented problems.
Instead of cracking down on the successful food trucks, D.C. should look to those businesses’ success as a reason to cut the red tape that engulfs entrepreneurs who want to launch brick-and-mortar restaurants.
For these and other reasons, Keep Food Legal and our members and supporters urge DCRA to ADOPT the proposed regulations insofar as they do not restrict mobile food vending and to amend the proposed regulations so that they 1) DO NOT place any restrictions on mobile vendors based in any way on the items they serve; 2) DO NOT adopt the proposed Vending Development Zones; 3) DO NOT restrict operating hours for food trucks; and 4) DO permit the sale of alcohol beverages from food trucks. Additionally we urge DCRA to consider steps to alleviate the tremendous burden the agency's regulations (and regulations enforced by other District agencies) place on brick-and-mortar restaurants.
Thank you for reviewing and considering the comments of Keep Food Legal and our members and supporters. I would be happy to speak further about my remarks at your request.
###
END
