The city of San Francisco recently passed an ordinance banning the inclusions of toys with meals that don’t mean arbitrarily selected nutritional standards (standards so high that public school meals don’t even meet them). This ordinance was a swipe at fast food joints that provide toys with kids meals and like all such ordinances this one ended up being entirely pointless:
It turns out San Francisco has not entirely vanquished the Happy Meal as we know it. Come Dec. 1, you can still buy the Happy Meal. But it doesn’t come with a toy. For that, you’ll have to pay an extra 10 cents.
I’m not usually a big fan of McDonald’s (although I fully admit their fries are fucking awesome) but in this case I just want to find the person who came up with this idea and give them a huge fucking high-five. It fills me with joy to see, what was likely, hours of debate between worthless bureaucrats culminate into absolutely nothing. With a very simple change of policy McDonald’s was able to take this new piece of red tape and render it completely meaningless.
Oh, bonus points for coming up with a solution that does some additional good:
(though adults and children purchasing unhealthy food can at least take solace that the 10 cents is going to Ronald McDonald House charities)
That’s just rubbing salt in the state’s wound and I admire it greatly.
Rubbing french fry salt in the state’s wound.