[speedgibson] Speed Gibson: A Ray of Hope

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Posted by Speed Gibson:
A Ray of Hope
http://speedgibson.powerblogs.com/posts/1211118574.shtml


   From the [1]Chicago Tribune, columnist Phil Vettel reports that animal
   activist led 2006 ban on foie gras in Chicago was handily repealed.

     This fight was never about the foie gras.
     Last week, the Chicago City Council repealed its foie gras ban.
     Chefs hailed the action as a victory for personal choice and a
     repudiation of the nanny state. The People for the Ethical
     Treatment of Animals called it a craven capitulation to special
     interests. And Ald. Joe Moore (49th), who sponsored the 2006 ban,
     called it an outrageous display of old-time Boss politics.
     I think the ban was repealed because people were laughing at us.

   The marketplace always finds a way, doesn't it?

     Restaurant owners--and the customers who supported them--wasted no
     time finding creative ways around the law. I had an especially
     luscious "chicken liver terrine" at Cyrano's, har-de-har-har.
     Copperblue managed to source duck liver that tasted suspiciously
     wonderful; the owner maintained that it had come from naturally fed
     ducks, and who was qualified to dispute it?

   This reminds me of the old Nixon wage and price controls. Daytons (I
   can talk about it now) cleverly put new goods under a "temporary
   markdown" that would later get canceled when it was time to raise the
   price. Butchers invented "new" cuts of meat that had no price history.
   The marketplace found the ways to set prices where they needed to be.
   The next example is really America at its best, though.

     Bin 36 offered a premium-priced salad of figs, apricots and honey,
     "and the foie gras torchon is on us." That's what the menu said.
     The restaurant wasn't selling foie gras, it was selling a salad and
     giving away the liver.
     When the Health Department inspectors arrived at Bin 36 and decided
     that this transparent bit of legerdemain passed muster, declining
     to issue a citation, the battle was over. Basically, anyone who
     wanted to serve foie gras did so.

   Score one for our side.

References

   1. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-foie-gras-ban-perspective,0,3199140.story