When Foie Gras Is Outlawed Only Outlaws Will Enjoy The Rarified Pleasure Of Gorging Themselves On Unnaturally Large Goose Liver

It’s not so much a slippery slope as it is a mile-long water slide into a giant vat of mayonnaise:

Restaurants reeling from the Board of Health’s recent trans fat ban may have to gear up for another fight. Animal rights advocates are pushing for legislation to ban foie gras — which is French for “fatty liver” — claiming the duck or goose appetizer is produced by inhumane farming practices.

Gene Baur, president and co-founder of the Farm Sanctuary — an animal advocacy group with farms upstate and in California — is trying to drum up support among restaurants and diners through his “No foie gras” campaign launched last month.

Foie gras is produced by force feeding animals through a pipe, and Baur explained this can severely hurt the birds.

“Their internal organs get pushed against their lungs and they can’t breathe,” Baur said on a trip to the city last week.

“When people see these farm animals being force fed and their livers expand 10 times their normal size, they’re horrified. These animals are being pushed to their biological limits and put through such misery for a high-end appetizer. It’s the height of gastronomic narcissism.”

City Councilman Alan Gerson, who represents restaurant-rich neighborhoods such as TriBeCa and SoHo, planned to introduce such legislation around Thanksgiving, but tabled it. He is “still pursuing it and doing outreach at this very moment,” his spokesman Paul Nagel said yesterday.

The animal rights groups involved have “legitimate concerns,” Nagel said. “But there are economic issues and issues of choice, so he’s giving it serious consideration.”

You know what? Fuck you.

Dance, Boy

As the haves and have-mores scratch their way into the top tenth of the top one percent, other portions of New York City’s labor pool have reverted to bartering for basic services:

In a groundbreaking program that’s been a runaway success since the Daily News profiled it last year, hundreds of uninsured artists across the city have signed up to barter their talents for health care.

“This was uncharted territory,” said Dr. Edward Fishkin, medical director at Woodhull Hospital and the brain behind ArtistAccess, which has enrolled more than 350 uninsured dancers, actors and painters.

“I honestly didn’t know what would happen. [But] we have exceeded expectations,” Fishkin said.

The artists like the idea of offering their services for health care, he said.

“They didn’t want to look like they’re getting charity,” he said.

The Williamsburg hospital now fields up to 30 calls a week from artists who want to participate, he said.

It also has caught on at other city hospitals. A dozen artists at Manhattan’s Bellevue Hospital have been bartering since March, and Kings County Hospital officials are looking into starting the program there.

After creating collages with pediatric patients at Woodhull, mixed-media artist Janet Olivia Henry, 59, banked enough credits for a physical.

“It makes a huge, huge difference, being able to get a doctor’s visit, just attending to keeping well,” said Henry of Jamaica, Queens, a part-time preschool art teacher who doesn’t have health insurance.

Watercolor painter Timothy Lunceford, 49, who lives in Greenwich Village, racked up $2,500 in medical bills after twice being hospitalized at Bellevue for heart problems.

“I didn’t feel like walking away,” Lunceford said of his obligations, adding that he couldn’t have paid his bills without the bartering program.

And By “Low-Hanging Fruit” We Mean Low-Hanging Fruit Stored At Unsafe Temperatures Too Close To Chemicals

Student journalists (and some professional ones) can’t resist the low-hanging fruit:

NYU students know BBQ, on the corner of University Place and Eighth Street, for its frozen margaritas and one of the best happy hours near campus. But the noisy watering hole is also popular with flying insects and roaches, according to a city health inspection report available online.

During an inspection BBQ failed on Oct. 17, a Department of Health and Mental Hygiene inspector noted “evidence of roaches or live roaches” and flying insects. The DOHMH also cited BBQ for several food temperature violations.

BBQ is one of at least six Washington Square-area restaurants that have failed one or more city health inspections this year, WSN reported yesterday. DOHMH keeps online records of its inspections, citing restaurants for violations including evidence of rodents and cockroaches and failing to keep food at safe temperatures. Violations are assigned point values that accumulate to form a restaurant’s score — zero is the best possible score and 28 points equals a failure of an inspection.

Of the restaurants with failed inspections, only Dojo East on St. Marks Place was closed; the other five restaurants passed subsequent inspections. Of those — BBQ, Campus Eatery, Dean & Deluca, Le Basket and Peanut Butter & Co. — BBQ had the highest score, according DOHMH reports. BBQ failed a follow-up inspection on Nov. 8, scoring 41 points. Inspectors again found evidence of flying insects and roaches, as well as several food temperature violations.

Seriously, though, the Washington Square News deserves many props for getting not one but two managers to serve up statements along the lines of “The bottom line is that we passed, and if we’re not good, we’d be closed.” Which is why you’ve got to feel for Dojo, which took care of one problem only to see another rearing its ugly head:

Dojo Restaurant on St. Marks Place has failed three of its past four inspections since September 2005 and earned over 60 points on its last two, according to inspection reports. In a Sept. 6 inspection, the inspector saw evidence of mice and flying insects. In a re-inspection only a few weeks later, an inspector found evidence of rats instead.

Then there’s the unsettling concept of the Incontinent Mouse (incidentally, a great name for a coffee shop):

And vermin infestations can do more than cause customers to shriek in horror.

“They carry all kinds of disease,” [Pest Away Exterminating owner Jeffrey] Eisenberg said. “Mice urinate every 15 seconds. They urinate literally thousands of times a day.

“If they’re on the countertop, if they’re on the food, they’ve urinated,” said Eisenberg. He explained that while customers might not understand it as “food poisoning,” they can feel the effects.

Brokers, Taking A Page From Times Square Electronics Stores, Invoke Severability Of “Bait” And “Switch”

This week, broker Brian Carter explains to prospective renters the art of subtlety in real estate listings:

The practice of purposely misleading the consumer seems pretty standard to me and not at all out of the ordinary. So what’s all the fuss about? Advertisers as a whole have perfected the art of underestimating the general public and cashing in on our naive predilections and unconscious desires. Isn’t the whole goal of marketing to convince us that we are in desperate need of some completely useless stuff? And that purses, cars, creams and lotions all have the power to dramatically enhance and alter our lives? So why can’t I say Gramercy when it’s really Murray Hill? 550 square feet, or 650 square feet? Is there really a difference? And, yes, the ad said $2,400, but the market moves and today its $2,700. What’s the problem?

At least the renter does in fact need a place. No one is out there subtly persuading anyone to move. In fact, that’s the whole point behind the misleading ad. They aren’t moving because they’d like to. They didn’t see my ad and then say to themselves, “You know what, I think I’ll move into this place. Look at that picture!” They move because they have to. And chances are the uninitiated, overworked or just plain lazy will hire an agent to help them. Hell, most people hire 10. I just want to be in the mix. The ad is not to rent that particular apartment — it’s to lure in clients.

The frustration is justifiable, and none of this is meant to defend the jackass out there posting no-fee ads when he or she fully intends to charge a hefty fee. I have never understood that particular practice. I have a hard enough time renting the real apartments with only the location, size and price slightly altered. A week into the search, most renters are already a little pissed off and guarded. How the hell anyone explains to them at that point that their no-fee apartment will actually cost a few thousand dollars is beyond me.

This Bud’s For Choo-Choo

Sure, you don’t need to drink on the train but isn’t it pretty sweet that you can? That may be changing:

An MTA board member made a sobering recommendation yesterday: Ban booze sales by the LIRR to its commuters.

Long Island Rail Road riders can buy a beer, a mixed drink or wine served in a plastic cup at railroad-staffed bar carts at Penn Station and at two other hubs.

At $2 a beer, it’s a relative bargain in this town — and the LIRR does a brisk business from the bar carts located on train platforms.

But at a Metropolitan Transportation Authority committee meeting yesterday, board member Mitchell Pally said the LIRR shouldn’t be in the booze business. As a state entity, it shouldn’t encourage alcohol consumption, partly because most passengers go on to drive home from LIRR parking lots, Pally said.

Under Pally’s proposal, passengers could still buy a libation elsewhere and bring it on board.

Many LIRR riders said they would miss the cheap and easy way to get drinks from the bar carts.

“There’s good things and there’s bad things about it,” said John Gambino, 33, last night as he raced to catch the train to Babylon and grabbed a beer. “But after a long day with all the pressure, it really relaxes you.”

Still, Gambino recalled how a pal of his had a few drinks on the train, then got the number of a young woman he was sitting next to — which his wife found in his coat pocket. “That caused problems,” he said.

This doesn’t apply to Hudson Valley- and Connecticut-bound Metro-North passengers, who apparently have more refined tastes:

Metro-North stood firmly in support of its drinking policy.

“We consider it an amenity for our customers who like a snack or a drink on their way home,” Metro-North spokeswoman Marjorie Anders said.