LA's fast-food ban draws skepticism

By Lisa Baertlein and Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A ban on new fast-food restaurants in poor Los Angeles neighborhoods has made headlines around the world, but residents say they don't plan to give up their cheeseburgers, fried chicken and tacos anytime soon.

The moratorium, which was passed in July, was intended to fight obesity in low-income communities of America's second-largest city where healthy food is hard to find.

The move is trend-setting California's latest salvo in an expanding war on the fast-food industry, which is bracing for copycat maneuvers around the United States that could threaten growth.

But residents are skeptical that such laws will have much impact in Los Angeles' low-income and minority neighborhoods, which are already blanketed with cheap and easy-to-find meals at chains such as McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell and Domino's Pizza.

"It's stupid. It's our body, we choose what we put in it," Tonya Owens, a 45-year-old nurse assistant told Reuters.

Edwin Tsai, interviewed at a cluster of fast-food chains in the affected district, which includes the neighborhoods of South Los Angeles, West Adams, Baldwin Hills and Leimert Park, said there were reasons people eat at places like McDonald's.

"It's fast and easy. I think people will still come here no matter what," Tsai, 23, said.

Eye-popping calorie counts and the often unhealthy ingredients used in fast food have made the industry a favorite whipping boy for anti-obesity advocates and lawmakers.

"This isn't the calm before the storm, this is still the storm," said California Restaurant Association spokesman Daniel Conway, whose group represents most major restaurant chains.

"A TARGET ON OUR BACKS"

"A target has been put on our backs. There seems to be some people out there who think that if only we can regulate the restaurant industry, we can cure obesity," said Conway, who added that his clients were bracing for a flood of similar legislation after the election season.

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jan Perry, sponsor of the moratorium, said she didn't want to eliminate fast-food chains in her 32-square-mile (82-sq-km) district, which is home to more than half a million people and 400 fast-food restaurants.

Instead, she said, the law was intended to give officials time to attract healthy alternatives and grocery stores, which are few and far between in poorer, urban neighborhoods.

Experts say supermarket chains are reluctant to open stores in such neighborhoods out of security and theft concerns -- a worry that Perry calls outdated and misplaced.

Her move followed a report showing that about 30 percent of children living in the district, which has the city's highest concentration of fast-food restaurants, are obese compared with some 21 percent in the rest of Los Angeles.