Saturday, February 18, 2012

How does ward of the state sound to you?

CA says mobile food vending trucks a 'threat' to kids

Lee DeCovnick

The California legislature continues to act as the hard left's petri dish for testing totalitarian policies. AB 1678, introduced last Tuesday, would ban mobile food and beverage trucks within 1,500 feet of elementary and secondary schools.

From the Sacramento Bee we read:

The food truck nation is fretting over AB 1678, a bill introduced into the California State Legislature on Tuesday a.k.a. Valentine's Day. But this was no love letter for fans of mobile food. The bill seeks to ban mobile food and beverage vending within 1,500 feet of elementary and secondary schools from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. when schools are in session. The bill was introduced by Bill Monning (D-Carmel), and already given support by the California Food Policy Advocates, which focuses on low income familes' access to affordable and nutritious foods.

A statement from Monning's office reads in part: "Mobile food vending poses a threat to student safety as well as student nutrition. Mobile vending near school campuses incentivizes students to leave school grounds, which increases students' exposure to off-campus hazards such as heavily trafficked streets."

So, here's the part that has food truck operators and fans worried. Banning mobile food trucks from operating within 1,500 feet of schools would basically put food trucks out of business by severely limiting where they could operate.This map shows the effect AB 1678 would have in Sacramento if passed.

Take a second to click on the map link. The "no vend" zones would look effectively prohibit mobile food trucks from almost all of California's urban and suburban cities.

The bill is designed to force school age kids to purchase state and federally subsidized on campus food, that is prepared by unionized food handlers. So, what's really going on here? Well, the unions get more dues for purchasing more politicians, the politicians control of another slice of you and your children's lives and liberties while adding another level of bureaucracy, the working taxpayers get shafted again, and a raft of entrepreneurial, non-unionized small businessman gets legislated out of business. And all of this is justified in the name of protecting the children. Call it another hard left win-win-win, if and when the bill is passed.

Who are the California Food Policy Advocates, who pushed to introduce this wonderful plateful of bloody Democratic tartatre? Let's follow the money. A few of the CFPA's "Key Funders" include George Soros's Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the California Community Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. All three organizations are active hard left progressive groups, while under the guise of helping the less fortunate, whose blunt actions aim to fundamentally transform America into a nation where individual freedom, liberty, and private property have been sacrificed on the alter of safety, security and authoritarian governmental control.


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