San Francisco has banned McDonald’s Happy Meals. Are we surprised? Nah. But McDonald’s is fighting back. From the SF Weekly:
On Thursday, Dec. 1, the city’s de facto ban of the Happy Meal commences. San Francisco has accomplished what the Hamburglar could not. Or has it?
In order to include a toy with a meal, restaurants must now comply with city-generated nutritional standards. Those are standards that even the “healthier” Happy Meals McDonald’s introduced earlier this year don’t come close to meeting. (As SF Weekly noted in January, the school lunches our children eat aren’t healthy enough to qualify, either).
And yet it seems McDonald’s has turned lemons into lemonade — and is selling the sugary drink to San Francisco’s children. Local McDonald’s employees tell SF Weekly the company has devised a solution that appears to comply with San Francisco’s “Healthy Meal Incentive Ordinance” that could actually make the company more money — and necessitate toy-happy youngsters to buy more Happy Meals.
It turns out San Francisco has not entirely vanquished the Happy Meal as we know it. Come Dec. 1, you can still buy the Happy Meal. But it doesn’t come with a toy. For that, you’ll have to pay an extra 10 cents. Huh. That hardly seems to have solved the problem (though adults and children purchasing unhealthy food can at least take solace that the 10 cents is going to Ronald McDonald House charities). But it actually gets worse from here. Thanks to Supervisor Eric Mar’s much-ballyhooed new law, parents browbeaten into supplementing their preteens’ Happy Meal toy collections are now mandated to buy the Happy Meals.
Today and tomorrow mark the last days that put-upon parents can satiate their youngsters by simply throwing down $2.18 for a Happy Meal toy. But, thanks to the new law taking effect on Dec. 1, this is no longer permitted. Now, in order to have the privilege of making a 10-cent charitable donation in exchange for the toy, you must buy the Happy Meal. Hilariously, it appears Mar et al., in their desire to keep McDonald’s from selling grease and fat to kids with the lure of a toy have now actually incentivized the purchase of that grease and fat — when, beforehand, a put-upon parent could get out cheaper and healthier with just the damn toy.
Messages for Mar and his legislative aides — who are, at this moment, in a Board of Supervisors meeting — have not yet been returned.
In any event, it appears the fast food chain’s sharpie lawyers have McTopped San Francisco’s legislators. Count this city’s lawmakers as the latest among the billions and billions served.
I’ve got an idea. Let’s ban San Francisco.
Proving once again (as if it needed to be proven) that people in the private sector are smarter than people in the public sector.
Also proving, once again, that with the passage of any new law a very old one is re-ratified.
Here’s some free marketing advice for Bay area McDonald’s franchises. Since another word for “happy” is “gay”, the Bay area McDonalds should simply change the name of their “Happy Meal” product to “Gay Meal”. Then when the SF food police try to ban the new “Gay Meals”, McDonalds can claim the ban is simply a form homophobia.
That’s what Alinsky would do.
Slider, we better not give them any ideas about a gay meal. Imagine what they’ll start serving with it. Then imagine the toy that would be included…
“I’ve got an idea. Let’s ban San Francisco.”
The boss man comes up with the quote of the day.
I love a working man.
– daily I have to walk by dozens of SFPD surrounding the Occupy-Bocce Courts camp in Ess Eff. All other cities have acted; Ess Eff will ponder the problem at great expense through 2012.
These folks really believe they have the right to determine what products a company can or cannot sell. It truly boggles the mind.
For example, liquor is a legal product, if you are over 21. Yes, they can ban the purchase by minors, because it clearly is bad to combine juvenile stupidity with alcholic stupidity. We protect our youth. We ban them from driving, protect them from exploitation, and so forth. But since it is a legal product, they really do not have the right to say which businesses can sell it or not. They do not actually own the monopoly on everything.
Someone remind these clowns that Bill Clinton loves McDonald’s. I bet he fed Chelsea Happy Meals, while he grabbed a Big Mac. Sheesh.
I’m confused. Are you saying that the government cannot control who sells liquor? Or are you saying they can’t control who sells Happy Meals? I’ve never checked, but I think that all states require you to have a liquor license in order to sell liquor. So, to follow the analogy, states could require businesses to have a “Happy Meal license” in order to sell meals that include toys for children. Not that I’d encourage such nonsense, but…
Funny how San Francisco, a sanctuary city, has no problem with gross violations of federal law in regard to the mass import of people from the Third World but are nigglers when it comes to calories. One can well imagine which city in the U.S. will be the first to mandate helmets before leaving the house and ban bicycles without training wheels as too dangerous.
Won’t matter too much. There are hardly any children left in San Francisco.
http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/2011/03/san-francisco-becoming-child-free-zone-youth-population-declines
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