If Crisco Is Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Use Crisco

Hizznanny wants to ban trans fats — not at schools, not in public facilities, but everywhere:

The New York City Board of Health voted unanimously yesterday to move forward with plans to prohibit the city’s 20,000 restaurants from serving food that contains more than a minute amount of artificial trans fats, the chemically modified ingredients considered by doctors and nutritionists to increase the risk of heart disease.

The board, which is authorized to adopt the plan without the consent of any other agency, did not take that step yesterday, but it set in motion a period for written public comments, leading up a public hearing on Oct. 30 and a final vote in December.

Yesterday’s initiative appeared to ensure that the city would eventually take some formal action against artificial trans fats. If approved, the proposal voted on yesterday by the Board of Health would make New York the first large city in the country to strictly limit such fats in restaurants. Chicago is considering a similar prohibition affecting restaurants with less than $20 million in annual sales.

The New York prohibition would affect the city’s entire restaurant industry, by far the nation’s largest, from McDonald’s to fashionable bistros to street corner takeouts across the five boroughs.

The city would set a limit of a half-gram of artificial trans fats per serving of any menu item, sharply reducing most customers’ intake. The fats are commonly found in baked goods, like doughnuts and cakes, as well as breads and salad dressing.

As you might assume, the restaurant industry was skeptical:

E. Charles Hunt, executive vice president of the New York State Restaurant Association, which represents about 3,500 restaurants in New York City, said the proposal before the city’s Board of Health would most likely lead to litigation. The group plans to fight the proposal at an Oct. 30 public hearing.

“They’re going way beyond the scope of an appointed agency,” Mr. Hunt said of the health department. He added that such an action “could be considered in restraint of interstate commerce” even if it was enacted by the mayor and City Council and that there could be grounds for a lawsuit.

. . .

And Mr. Hunt wondered how small restaurants would adapt. “For a health inspector to walk into a mom and pop restaurant in Queens, where they barely speak English, and find a can of Crisco shortening on the shelf and then fine them $1,000,” he said, “well, that’s unreasonable.”

But at least one local restauranteur went off message, reasoning that since his establishment didn’t use trans fats, he didn’t feel the need to speak out:

Some restaurant owners support the plan. Mark Maynard-Parisi, 39, managing partner at Blue Smoke, a barbecue restaurant in Gramercy Park, said the plan was “wonderful.”

Blue Smoke uses a blend of canola and vegetable oils for frying that was recently certified as trans fat free by the health department, Mr. Maynard-Parisi said. “I’m not trying to pass us off as a healthy restaurant,” he said. But, he said, he and his partners “wanted it to be real and, to us, margarine,” which is rich in trans fats, “isn’t real.”

First they came for the trans fats . . .

Then again, why worry? After all, in large swaths of the city, even the smoking ban is largely unenforced.

Or alternatively, let the Health Department inspect places like Blue Smoke in Manhattan all they want — everyone grandstands, no one is punished, everyone wins.