California's Santa Clara County Bans Happy Meal Toys 756
WrongSizeGlass writes "The L.A. Times is reporting that Santa Clara County officials have voted to ban toys and other promotions that restaurants offer with high-calorie children's meals. 'This ordinance prevents restaurants from preying on children's love of toys' to sell high-calorie, unhealthful food, said Supervisor Ken Yeager, who sponsored the measure. 'This ordinance breaks the link between unhealthy food and prizes.' Supervisor Donald Gage, who voted against the measure, said, 'If you can't control a 3-year-old child for a toy, God save you when they get to be teenagers.' The vote was 3 - 2 in favor of the ban."
Ban bad copypasta (Score:5, Informative)
What the article says:
"This ordinance prevents restaurants from preying on children's love of toys" to sell high-calorie, unhealthful food, said Supervisor Ken Yeager, who sponsored the measure.
What the summary says:
'This ordinance prevents restaurants from preying on children's love of toys' to sell high-calorie, unhealthful toys, said Supervisor Ken Yeager, who sponsored the measure.
Clarification (Score:5, Informative)
The San Jose Mercury News [mercurynews.com] (warning: pop-under ad) has more details. The ordinance does not ban Happy Meal toys per se, but rather bans toys distributed with meals that exceed nutritional limits (485 Calories, 600 mg sodium). Furthermore, it only applies to unincorporated areas of Santa Clara County. (There are no McDonald's locations in unincorporated areas of Santa Clara County.)
This seems like a good idea to me. Obviously, fast food restaurants give toys away only as a perverse incentive to attract kids. This ordinance, while largely symbolic, nullifies that marketing ploy. You want a toy? You can only get it if you forego the soda and the salt on the fries.
Re:I swear.... (Score:4, Informative)
My daughter quickly learned that Burger King and McDonalds had toys. That didn't mean I had to take her there. If she really wants to go to a fast food place and get a toy, I take her to Subway and get her a turkey sandwich.
Responsible parenting isn't all that hard.
It really gets me that people who scream so loudly about freedom and liberty and usually the ones who want to take it away piece by piece with legislation.
Re:As a parent of two children... (Score:5, Informative)
As a parental rule, it is good.
As legislation, it is terible.
purely symbolic, can't build unincorporated (Score:1, Informative)
Its purely symbolic, because you cant build in unincorporated land, it becomes automatically incorporated. Basically, its a useless waste of time law with no possible teeth. Remember Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad [wikipedia.org].
Re:I swear.... (Score:5, Informative)
the reason the chicken tastes better is 2 things
1 the chicken is shipped in as Raw fillets they then thaw out pans and then prep them and cook them
2 They use peanut oil and a pressure cooker (note this is why if you are very allergic to peanuts you can't eat chik-fil-a food or be in the kitchen end of the restaurant for very long)
oh and i love the fact that corporation wide NOBODY works on sunday
You CAN control a 3 year old, NOT a 6 year old (Score:3, Informative)
The six year old receives public school instruction about inappropriate touching and who to call if it happens (generally, 911, which leads to CPS).
The smart six year old threatens his parents with such a call and claim if they DON'T do as he asks.
Add over-zealous persecution to make quotas, and you find that many parents live in fear of their children. In many cases, the mere accusation is enough to destroy a career, and defending against even an "obviously" baseless charge is very expensive: at the very least bail for accused child molestors is generally set very high.
Are you going to wager your liberty and everything you own that the CPS worker assigned to investigate you is reasonable?
Remember, if a worker makes a mistake, and a "bad thing" happens, they get crucified. But, they generally have immunity from prosecution, if they err zealously on the side of caution.
Re:I swear.... (Score:3, Informative)
Wait, what? Chinese manufacturing workers like their jobs, you know, and manufacturing jobs are drying up in China with people having to head back to the farms. If you think working 12 hours a day in a factory for low pay is bad, you've never worked 12 hours a day of hard manual labor on the family farm for no pay and no prospects of things getting better.
Re:I swear.... (Score:2, Informative)
Your excuses for taking away my freedom are wrong. Here's why: they take away my freedom. End of necessary argument.
Re:I swear.... (Score:4, Informative)
I thought that Jamie Oliver failed because he cooked up food the kids hated and he was a pretentious jerk while doing it.
That's pretty much the reaction the media reported when he changed the food in some schools here in Britain. Then there were pictures of obese women handing fast food over a fence to their children at lunchtime, and opinion seemed to change.
The children got used to it, health improved, academic results improved and (an unexpected bonus) illness reduced.
(It seems appropriate to cite The Sun [thesun.co.uk] -- it calls the women "sinner ladies", which is pretty much opposite to what you'd expect (think Fox News, kinda). Note that in the UK "poor" children get free school meals; buying their own is daft.)
Re:I swear.... (Score:4, Informative)
(We do Chick-fil-A. Does that count as crap food?)
Word to the wise: NEVER mention a chain by name on the internet. There will ALWAYS be a group that jumps all over you for it being crap food. If baked angel poop (which costs $1, extends life by 5 years per ounce and tastes just like cinnamon) was sold by a national chain people would ridicule you for buying it.