McDonald's Happy Meals 1, San Francisco Lawmakers 0

By Susan Duclos

Remember back in November 2010 when the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance requiring meals that included toys with their purchase to meet specific nutritional guidelines.

The supes today passed an ordinance that will require meals to meet nutritional guidelines if restaurants wish to include a toy with the food purchase.

More importantly, the supes passed the so-called "Happy Meal Ban" by an 8-3 vote -- meaning it can survive a promised veto from Mayor Gavin Newsom. That's right: San Francisco done banned the Happy Meal. Robble robble.

It was dubbed the Happy Meal toy ban. It goes into effect December 1, 2011.

McDonald's had a year to think about it and they have figured out a way to not only comply with the nanny state law, but sell more Happy Meals in the process!!!

SF Weekly reports "Happy Meal Ban: McDonald's Outsmarts San Francisco."

In order to include a toy with a meal, restaurants must now comply with city-generated nutritional standards. Those are standards that even the "healthier" Happy Meals McDonald's introduced earlier this year don't come close to meeting. (As SF Weekly noted in January, the school lunches our children eat aren't healthy enough to qualify, either).

And yet it seems McDonald's has turned lemons into lemonade -- and is selling the sugary drink to San Francisco's children. Local McDonald's employees tell SF Weekly the company has devised a solution that appears to comply with San Francisco's "Healthy Meal Incentive Ordinance" that could actually make the company more money -- and necessitate toy-happy youngsters to buy more Happy Meals.

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.

Huh. That hardly seems to have solved the problem (though adults and children purchasing unhealthy food can at least take solace that the 10 cents is going to Ronald McDonald House charities). But it actually gets worse from here. Thanks to Supervisor Eric Mar's much-ballyhooed new law, parents browbeaten into supplementing their preteens' Happy Meal toy collections are now mandated to buy the Happy Meals.

Today and tomorrow mark the last days that put-upon parents can satiate their youngsters by simply throwing down $2.18 for a Happy Meal toy. But, thanks to the new law taking effect on Dec. 1, this is no longer permitted. Now, in order to have the privilege of making a 10-cent charitable donation in exchange for the toy, you must buy the Happy Meal. Hilariously, it appears Mar et al., in their desire to keep McDonald's from selling grease and fat to kids with the lure of a toy have now actually incentivized the purchase of that grease and fat -- when, beforehand, a put-upon parent could get out cheaper and healthier with just the damn toy.

Shouldn't take too long for nanny state supporters, who believe the state should tell parents what to buy their children, what to feed them, and tell restaurants what they are and aren't allowed to sell, to start whining about that nasty corporation called McDonald's daring to find a way to make more money.

That nasty capitalism bug strikes again.

I think I am going to go to McDonald's tomorrow and buy a toy with a Happy Meal, just... cuzzzzzzz.

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