A Stitch in Haste

A New York City hack politician has jumped the shark:

Councilman Joel Rivera, health committee chairman, said at a hearing Wednesday he was exploring the idea of using zoning laws to prevent fast food joints from taking over city streets.
...
He said there is a high concentration of fast food eateries in low-income communities, and suggested that might to contribute to obesity rates, which also tend to be greater in those areas.

Rivera said he plans to hold hearings on the matter --particularly to explore whether New York City zoning laws could be tweaked so specifically.

There was time when zoning laws were limited to broad, generalized attempts to account for true, objectively demonstrable externalities among property owners themselves (e.g., "this area shall be residential," "that area shall be industrial"). Zoning is not an excuse, however, for every would-be central planner bureaucrat and politician to play mini-dictator to generate warm fuzzy feelings that trample on both property rights and freedom of choice.

We have seen a city ban smoking outright, we have seen cities, entire states and even Congress either ban or consider banning junk food (and not-quite-junk food) from schools. Now we are seeing potential zoning restrictions on perfectly legal products (and don't forget calls for "fat taxes" and soda taxes). Can the reductio result — outright bans on junk food, period — be far behind?

More thoughts at Overlawyered.