Councilmember Shocked To Discover That There Is Such Thing As The American Meat Institute*

The City Council again tackles the important issues:

One City Council member wants to outlaw a process called modified atmosphere packaging that allows meat to stay red even when it’s not so fresh.

“It’s clearly deceptive,” said Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Queens). “People think they are buying meat that looks healthy, and it’s made that way artificially.”

But Janet Riley of the American Meat Institute said the process, which uses small amounts of carbon monoxide to extend the shelf life of meat, is safe and doesn’t mask spoiled food.

“You would absolutely know if the meat was spoiled,” Riley said. “It would be slimy, the package would be bulging and it would smell — that smell is unmistakable.”

*Another great band name!

Next, You Should Pass A Resolution Condemning The Practice

Using its limited resources wisely, the City Council confirms what anyone who has ever rented an apartment quickly realizes — no-fee listings are a scam:

Beware online ads promising the perfect rental apartment with no broker fee – nearly one-third of them are lying, a City Council report revealed yesterday.

The Council’s Oversight and Investigations Committee recently contacted 223 real estate agents who advertised “no fee” apartments on two popular online Web sites: craigslist.org and backpage.com.

The investigators discovered that 31% of the so-called “no fee” apartments did, in fact, have broker fees.

“There’s no place in this city for deceptive and misleading sales practices,” said Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Queens), the committee’s chairman, during a news conference at City Hall.

“We need to make sure that — however it is that you’re searching for an apartment — the deal you’re getting is an honest one,” Gioia said.

But What Would Matthew Modine Have To Say?

Now this sounds useful:

Outside Colombia, Bogotá is better known for its association with cocaine trafficking than for its traffic congestion.

For many of the city’s 7 million residents, however, it was the bumper-to-bumper traffic that topped their list of grievances as of 1998, when Enrique Peñalosa was elected mayor. During his three-year tenure, Mr. Peñalosa devised and implemented a comprehensive city bus system that has eased congestion in Colombia’s capital and cut Bogotános’ commutes to work by hundreds of hours a year.

In his keynote address today at a New York transportation conference, Mr. Peñalosa will discuss the overhaul of Bogotá’s mass transit system, and ways traffic could be eased along New York’s car-clogged streets. More than 500 people, including elected officials, mass transit advocates, community activists — and even celebrities such as actor Matthew Modine and the musician Moby — are expected at the day-long conference, hosted by Manhattan’s president, Scott Stringer.

. . .

Acknowledging the vast differences between New York and Bogotá, the latter of which is far poorer and has no subway system, Mr. Peñalosa said not all of the recent transportation reforms instituted in his hometown would be applicable here.

“Everyone Can Hold Their Chin Up”

City Councilman Eric Gioia gets results:

The storage company that riled straphangers with its ads mocking the city’s boroughs outside Manhattan has agreed to pull its posters, though company officials insist they didn’t mean to offend anyone.

“If anything, our posters are meant to poke fun at the excessive prices of self-storage in Manhattan, and certainly not as a cultural critique of the outer boroughs,” an executive at Public Storage wrote in response to a stern letter from City Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Queens) last week calling for the ads to be removed.

. . .

“We will take care to develop future advertising themes that are consistent with our commitment to the diversity of New York City,” [Public Storage senior vice president Mark Bilfield] said.

Gioia, who repeated his invitation to the company’s chief executive to tour the city with him, called it “a victory for everyone who’s proud to live in the five boroughs.”

“I’m very happy to see them taking down their ads,” Gioia said. “Everyone can hold their chin up. We stood up for ourselves and we won.”

Backstory: No Offense Taken . . .

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.