Folies Minneapolis - An Epiphany that Rules Failed.

[maxparrish]

The Minneapolis Consumer Well-Being Engineers were partially derailed last fall when restaurants and consumers pressured for a breath of freedom from an old law. The law, which voters and the city council repealed, required "restaurants to prove that food sales make up at least 70 percent of their total food and beverage sales. The law also banned restaurants from serving alcohol to customers who are waiting for a table in the restaurant." (A laughable policy to anyone used to dining in sophisticated and cosmopolitan settings).

Not that it is certain that all the 'healthy eating and drinking' nonsense has been retired. "Earlier this year, the city council adopted a City Healthy Food Policy that mandates "healthful food in vending machines, in city cafeterias and at meetings with city-funded food."

"I'm a little bit mortified that we have a whole staff team that spent god-knows-how-many hours talking about whether or not there could be carrots in a vending machine," said councilwoman Lisa Goodman."

These silly laws hardly appear to be outliers in the city. After all, Minneapolis was the first city in the country to adopt a law, the Staple Foods Ordinance, that requires many small stores—including convenience stores and gas stations—to stock fresh produce and other "healthy" foods. The city adopted these rules in 2008. Violators face fines of $200....

The proposed rules would expand the stores covered under the ordinance to include not just corner stores and gas stations but dollar stores. They'd all be required "to stock 30 pounds or 50 items of at least seven varieties of fresh fruits and vegetables.... [and] at least 3 varieties of meat, poultry, fish or vegetable proteins, at least 6 containers of a dozen eggs, at least 192 ounces of canned beans and four packages of dried beans and lentils[.]"

Why is the city looking to expand the program? That's not entirely clear. It's certainly not because it's been a success.

For example, small pharmacy owner Justin Pacult reported in 2012 that participating in the program caused him to lose "about $1,000 in eight months."

Earlier this year, perhaps thanks to reports like that, Minneapolis reduced support for the ordinance. A Star-Tribune article in February indicated that "after seeing mixed results... the city is scaling the program back[.]"

Those "mixed results" include the fact that "stores on average were selling less than $10 a week of produce." At the inflated rates charged by corner stores—no fault of their own, as consumers are paying primarily for convenience—that amounts to a handful of apples per store.

To no one's surprise, "Minneapolis is discovering that improving diets in disadvantaged areas requires more than just putting healthier food on convenience stores shelves."

The state, which provides grant money to support the ordinance, has identified several challenges in implementing the law. University researchers also noted the same problems.

A 2012 study determined, among other things, this plainly obvious fact: "at least 2 key stakeholders must be satisfied for an intervention to last: the store owner/manager and the customer."

Among the many other equally obvious challenges the study identified was that Minneapolis store owners "reported that procuring healthy items in a convenient and affordable way was a challenge."

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded study concluded that "while increasing access to healthy foods in small stores is viable, interventionists and researchers working in this area must focus as much effort on increasing customer demand for healthy products as they do on improving store supply of these products for such interventions to be successful."

Gee, no kidding?

What should Minneapolis be doing to ensure city residents have access to healthier food? Well, for one it could continue to get the hell out of the way of those who want to sell fresh produce.

"Current city regulations only allow portable stores to sell pre-packaged foods near senior citizen high rise apartment buildings," noted another Star-Tribune article earlier this year. "As a result, no one has opened a mobile grocery store in the city in recent history, according to a staff report."

Carefull there, pretty soon someone might be asking for a free market - you can't just let people buy and sell what they wish to eat, can you?

https://reason.com/archives/2014/10/25/the-problems-with-minneapoliss-micromana/

 

[bilby]

Well, that's that then. Someone passed a poorly thought out regulation that did not have the desired effect; Clearly the only possible response to this is for all regulation of any kind to be scrapped immediately.


Is there a prize for 'Most blatant use of a false equivalence fallacy'? Because if there is, I would like to nominate this OP.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

It's old news, but the liquor sales was the last vestige of Prohibition.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

And I just checked, the charter vote was 80% for changing the wine license (I was among them) and the weird food thing... well I never found anything about that.