Restaurants have been having a relatively difficult time in NYC lately and are striking back in court. There was the trans-fat controversy that had the Board of Health ready to ban the possibly unhealthy oil from use in restaurants, if a suitably tasty replacement could be found. Then there was the rat fiasco, when scores of rats frolicking in a West Village restaurant drew onlookers and news crews, initiating a wide round of restaurant re-inspections and business closings as inspectors looked to clean up their image.
Restaurateurs are legally balking at the latest demand that they list nutritional information on their menus, perhaps rightly fearing that customers might decline ordering a crème brûlée if they saw its calorie count between the item description and the price. The New York State Restaurant Association has gone to federal court to delay the imposition of a new regulation that would make businesses list the calorie count of food items in the same font and size as everything else on the menu. It only applies to businesses that already make calorie information available to customers.
The NYRA says that the new rule simply penalizes restaurants that have already been trying to provide nutritional information to their customers. The Health Dept. says it just wants provided information to be someplace where diners will be able to find it easily. The proposed regulation is set to go into effect in two weeks, on July 1.
(Menu @ Bouchon Bakery To Go Counter, by MidtownLunch at flickr)
