(Or: Critters in the Kitchen, Elephant in the Room)
Hello from Danoodle’s New York Correspondent Gillian, here to report on all things political in America’s First Third-World City™.
Just in case you think that Bay Area politics don’t affect the rest of the country, ponder this: the strangely influential anti-trans fat lobby convinced Tiburon to become the first trans-fat-free city in the country. Last spring, our "Republican" Mayor Michael Bloomberg made New York the second. And the story is an excellent example of how arbitrary special-interest regulation can distract from the real issues of government.
The same week Bloomberg and the city council rendered our McDonald’s french fries inedible (have you tried french fries not marinated in artery-clogging trans fat?), footage aired on local news channels of another threat to health and hygiene: rats roaming free in broad daylight in a KFC/TacoBell right around the corner from my Greenwich Village apartment.
This prompted many New Yorkers to question the mayor’s health priorities. And thanks to this “shocking” footage, the city’s long-dormant health inspection department has finally come to life again, closing down restaurants left and right. Even now, many storefronts across the city exhibit the yellow notice of shame.
The rodent problem has always been an open secret in New York, where piles of garbage and mice are a regular feature of the morning walk to the subway. Even the best of restaurants (such as Danoodle’s beloved Café Del Mar) occasionally have local wildlife scurrying across the floor and scaring patrons. But while the sporadic mouse in a dining area is one thing, rats in the kitchen are quite another. The fashionable Da Silvano restaurant (also around the corner - they're closing in and I'm setting traps!) was recently caught with rats in the kitchen, and the problem runs the gamut from that sketchy all-night pizza place to the supposedly exclusive Waverly Inn (where I once witnessed a mouse crawl out of the ivy wall and onto my friend’s shoulder).
Here at Danoodle's NY HQ, we advocate the adoption of an LA-style restaurant grading system, where even the Four Seasons restaurant has to prominently display the Health Inspector's "A" (albeit in a lovely gilded frame). And we propose that before local governments regulate weakly-researched lifestyle issues like the danger of trans fat, they should address the very real, very obvious rat in the room.
