The Knucklehead of the Day award

Today's winner is Chicago Alderman Edward Burke. He gets the award for the following.

Chicago's mom-and-pop restaurants would be exempt from proposed restrictions on restaurants' use of artery-clogging trans fat oils, Ald. Edward Burke (14th) said Tuesday.

Burke's call for a blanket ban drew scorn from many restaurateurs and Mayor Richard Daley, but the powerful alderman said he would introduce an amended version of his proposal Wednesday.

The substitute ordinance would create a loophole for restaurants owned by companies with annual revenues of less than $20 million. The new proposal targets fast-food chains such as McDonald's while giving a pass to the city's ubiquitous hot dog stands, taquerias, family-style restaurants and gyros joints.

"The biggest source of this unhealthy eating is the fast-food outlets," Burke said. "I understand the argument that this is overregulating people's lives, but it's at the point now where if kids were permitted, they would be eating at these places three times a day."

A City Council committee is scheduled to hold the first public hearing on the revised proposal at 11 a.m. Wednesday in Room 201-A of City Hall.

Burke initially proposed making Chicago the first city in the nation to completely prohibit restaurants from using trans fat oils. The Harvard University School of Public Health estimates that 50,000 people die prematurely each year due to consumption of trans fats, used by restaurants in hydrogenated cooking oils and as a preservative in packaged food.

But Daley quickly said the ban is unnecessary, while the Illinois Restaurant Association argued that mom-and-pop restaurants could have difficulty complying with an ordinance requiring they use more expensive oil.

The substitute ordinance would allow restaurants to use a limited amount of cooking oils that contain artificial trans fats.

Under the revised ordinance, businesses covered by the restrictions would have two years from the date of the measure's approval to comply.

Colleen McShane, president of the Illinois Restaurant Association, said the substitute proposal is "a step in the right direction" toward a compromise that would not hurt restaurants.

She said some restaurants already have decided to stop using trans fat oils to cater to the wishes of their customers.

"You're messing with restaurants' menus and recipes. Is that really where the City Council belongs?" McShane said.

No Mr. McShane it isn't. Edward Burke is just one more example of the food police. People who want to meddle in everyone else's lives. This is just the latest idiotic attempt by politicians to micromanage life. We can do that for ourselves without Burke's butting in.

For not minding his own business, Chicago Alderman Edward Burke is today's knucklehead of the day.

Hat tip- Steve at OTB
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