SEATTLE —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
New York on July 1 became the first jurisdiction to enact requirements forcing chains to post calorie information on menu boards and menus, if the operators had previously disclosed that data through other media. Fines for infractions won’t be levied until Oct. 1, and several chains operating in the city have said they don’t intend to comply with the on-menu disclosure rule. —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
Washington state’s Seattle-anchored King County adopted a similar ordinance July 19 requiring the posting of nutrition information, which is scheduled to take effect next August. However, that rule is considered more onerous than the New York City regulation because virtually all King County chain restaurants would be obliged to conduct content analyses in order to make available a wider range of nutritional information about their menu items. —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
Officials with the Washington Restaurant Association are weighing a possible legal challenge to the law. —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
In New York, Subway, Auntie Anne’s Pretzels and Johnny Rockets are among those brands that have complied with the calorie-posting rule, but others are awaiting the outcome of a lawsuit filed by the New York State Restaurant Association contesting the authority of city health officials to impose such a mandate. At presstime, a ruling on that case was still pending. —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
Industry advocates and chain officials nationwide are watching the New York City and King County cases closely. —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
Proposals for some form of a menu-labeling requirement have been introduced in at least 21 states and municipalities across the country this year, and of those eight are still pending, according to the National Restaurant Association. —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
California will be next, predicted Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, or CSPI, a consumer-health advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., that has lobbied in favor of menu labeling across the country. —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
In California, a menu-labeling bill is scheduled for a final vote in the state Senate in September. California Restaurant Association officials are hoping that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would veto such a measure if it were passed, though he has not indicated his position on the matter. —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
Wootan, who was in California earlier this month to promote the bill, said a poll by the California Center for Public Health Advocacy indicates that 85 percent of the state’s residents support the inclusion of nutrition information on restaurant menus. —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
Restaurant industry officials, however, have mounted an aggressive campaign urging defeat of the proposal. —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
Because of California’s unique unfair-competition laws, opponents contend that the mandate could make restaurant operators vulnerable to class-action lawsuits if the nutrition information they would be required to post were more than slightly incorrect. —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
Wootan also predicted that menu-labeling bills introduced in Nassau County, N.Y., and Montgomery County, Md., which is just outside Washington, also have a good chance of passage this year. —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
Legislation also is pending in the District of Columbia, Chicago, Philadelphia, Hawaii, Massachusetts and Michigan, according to the NRA. —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
Most of the menu-labeling proposals are similar in that they typically apply to chains with 10 or more units, and nutrition information must be posted on menus and menu boards in some form. —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
Some proposals dictate details down to the type-face size that must be used, while others leave specifics to the discretion of local authorities. If more such mandates are adopted across the country, as expected, industry officials wonder how chains operating in several states will cope with the regionally varying rules. —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
“It’s really hard to see how they can easily put nutrition information on the menu of a drive-thru window, let alone a walk-up menu board,” said restaurant consultant Dennis Lombardi, executive vice president of foodservice strategies for WD Partners, based in Columbus, Ohio. “And if the rules vary by city or state, you might end up with a complete quagmire.” —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
The regulation adopted in New York City, for example, is among the least onerous of mandates proposed so far. It calls for foodservice establishments that already divulge nutrition information by any means to also post the number of calories for all items on menus and menu boards. —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
Attorneys for the New York State Restaurant Association argued that the city’s health department overstepped its authority, and that only the U.S. Food and Drug Administration can require nutrition labeling. The association’s lawsuit also calls the ruling discriminatory, saying it restricts First Amendment rights because some chains that offered nutrition information voluntarily on websites or by other means stopped doing so to avoid the city’s mandate. —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
In a friend-of-the-court brief filed in the case, the CSPI countered with the argument that the FDA deliberately had left the issue of menu labeling by restaurants up to the discretion of state and local authorities. —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
The ordinance in King County goes much further than the mandate in New York City, though details have yet to be worked out. It is also similar to what is proposed in California. —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
Chains in the Seattle area with at least 10 units must post nutrition information about all menu items at the point of sale. Quick-service restaurants can post only the number of calories in each item on menu boards, so long as supplementary information about fats, carbohydrates and sodium levels is available on request. —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
Full-service restaurants will be required to post calories, saturated fat, trans fat, and sodium levels of all items on the menu, along with the statement: “Recommended limits for a 2,000-calorie daily diet are 20 grams of saturated fat and 2,300 milligrams of sodium.” —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
A disclaimer can note possible variations, based on serving size, quantity of ingredients and special orders. But restaurants will be considered out of compliance if their nutrition values are considered to be more than 20 percent off. —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
What’s still not clear, said Trent House, director of government affairs for the Washington Restaurant Association, is how violators would be punished. —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
“They’ve said that this will be approached by inspectors the way they would consider food safety violations,” House said. “But could they close you down or suspend your license? None of those things are known.” —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
The ordinance also gives the county board of health authority to use its discretion to approve the use of other formats for communicating nutrition information, leaving restaurant operators even more confused, House asserted. —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
The WRA is hoping to work with health officials through the rulemaking process. In the meantime, however, the association, which has about 1,700 members in the King County-Seattle area, is discussing possible legal ramifications. —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
The issue raises questions about equal-protection rights under the U.S. Constitution, House said. —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
“This is basically a discriminatory statute,” he said. “If one restaurant has to spend money to comply, but the other doesn’t because it’s part of a smaller chain, even though they may offer basically the same product and price range, that’s discrimination.” —As public support grows for menu-labeling mandates, restaurant industry officials nationwide who are considering whether they would fight nutritional-disclosure rules are awaiting the results of a potential legal challenge here and one already in court in New York City.
